Dog Man is based on a series of graphic children’s books from author Dav Pilkey.  It’s a spinoff from Captain Underpants which is another childrens superhero film in this franchise. Peter Hastings the writer and director has brought these characters to like in a fun and very exciting way. For Universal and Dreamworks to put an animated movie out in January they had to see a spot that they could be successful and I think based on what I have seen that has a winner for the people who matter, That’s the children who will drag their parents to see this film early on.

The premise of Dog Man is this: Knight, a police officer and his trusted dog Greg fight crime in Ohkay City.  When an accidental explosion happens that causes and emergency surgery to splice the head of the dog onto the body of the man it changes the course of their lives forever, together they become Dog Man an indestructible crime fighting machine, all the criminals in their town are to death scared including their arch rival Petey ‘The Cat’ (Pete Davidson).  Protect and serve have new meaning in this exciting and fun animated movie for the kids.

Besides Pete Davidson as one of the villains of the story the supporting cast is filled with others who do steller voice-over work. Li l Rel Howery plays the Police Captain who has his issues with Dog Man throughout the film. Isla Fisher voices Sarah Hatoff, a news reporter who covers all the events going on in this town, TLil Petey is voiced by Lucas Hopkins. He adds an emotional twist to this story. The writer/director Hastings does all the dog sounds of Dog Man and the funnyman Ricky Jurvais plays another villain Flippy the Fish. This cast was pretty good from top to bottom. I had my share of laughs during the film.

I wasn’t much of a fan of these books because I’m an adult, but as I was asking my friends and family about this impending film coming out I was surprised by how much they wanted to see it and were looking forward to it. It’s such a huge series of books and that’s crazy to me because I had never heard of them until now. My niece Charlotte is a massive fan of the book series. I took her to the screening I went to and she absolutely loved this movie. ‘She said it was emotional and very entertaining’ this comes from an eight year old. That’s the demographic for this film and franchise it’s based on. I think the parents who come with their kids will love it as well.

Some of the things about this movie I noticed were the details about Ohkay City and the surrounding area the film takes place in. A lot of the places’ names end with Z instead of S. I thought that was weird. As the movie progressed I got used to that, Many of the names of the businesses were all quite cleverly created and added a nice chuckle or two from me. For the audience that this story and film are for this was a great thing to see, Don’t make things more complicated than they need to be in these kinds of movies. This was written very originally well by Hastings and the original author. 

Dog Man is based on a proven commodity such as Captain Underpants. Drewmworks and Universal saw that going in. Their release strategy was pretty good considering the January 31st release. That being said I think this  movie would do good no matter where it was released. It’s got a good story and direction from Hastings, Stellar voice over work from the entire cast, but I can’t believe I’m saying that Pete Davidson is fantastic as Petey The Cat. He completely understood the material he was working with and went with it the entire time. I loved listening to him as the main villain. The animation isn’t necessarily  the best, but it’s based on the graphic novels so that makes complete sense. This film is for one demographic and that’s kids, but if parents end up going and they inevitably will, they will like it as much as their children will. I did and I wasn’t that interested in it. That tells you how these filmmakers worked to make this a widely accessible film for all ages.

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen