DOGMAN (2025)

Genre: CG Animation
Director: Peter Hastings
Cast: Peter Hastings, Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, Lucas Hopkins Calderon, Ricky Gervais, Poppy Liu, Stephen Root, Billy Boyd
Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: UIP
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 13 March 2025

Synopsis: From DreamWorks Animation—creators of the beloved blockbuster franchises Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon and The Boss Baby—comes the canine-crime-fighting film adaptation of DAV PILKEY’s New York Times bestselling literary phenomenon: Dog Man. When a faithful police dog and his human police officer owner are injured together on the job, a harebrained but life-saving surgery fuses the two of them together and Dog Man is born. Dog Man is sworn to protect and serve—and fetch, sit and roll over. As Dog Man embraces his new identity and strives to impress his Chief (LIL REL HOWERY, Get Out, Free Guy), he must stop the pretty evil plots of feline supervillain Petey the Cat (PETE DAVIDSON; Saturday Night Live, The King of Staten Island). Petey’s latest plan is to clone himself, creating the kitten Li’l Petey, to double his ability to do crime stuff. Things get complicated, though, when Li’l Petey forges an unexpected bond with Dog Man. When Li’l Petey falls into the clutches of a common enemy, Dog Man (voiced by director PETER HASTINGS) and Petey reluctantly join forces in an action-packed race against time to rescue the young kitten. In the process, they discover the power of family (and kittens!) to bring even the most hostile foes together. 

Movie Review:

For the uninitiated, Dog Man started as a comic book written by the two primary school protagonists of Dav Pilkey’s ‘Captain Underpants’ series, before becoming its own bestselling series. That explains the similarities between them, not just in terms of their hyperactive pacing, but also in their kiddish, wacky and mildly potty humour. Take it though from someone who had little clue of the material before this – ‘Dog Man’ is silly through and through, but it’s also anarchically madcap fun.

Those unfamiliar with the origins of the half-human, half-canine police officer need not worry. Over an extended prologue, ‘Dog Man’ lays out how an accident while pursuing the dastardly Petey (Pete Davidson), a striped orange cat who terrorises Ohkay city, leaves Officer Knight and his trusty dog Greg (both voiced by Pete Hastings) winding up in an emergency room together, whereupon a nurse helpfully suggests ‘sewing the dog’s head onto the man’s body’. Thanks to that stroke of genius, Dog Man is born, just as determined to hunt down Petey but prone to getting sidetracked by canine habits.

Because The Chief (Lil Rel Howery) orders Dog Man to go after Petey, even if it takes a montage, we get a montage of Dog Man thwarting Petey’s evil schemes, until Dog Man decides that what he needs is another version of himself. That results in Dog Man purchasing a cloning machine online, but instead of an actual clone, Petey gets a tiny kitty (Lucas Hopkins Calderon) with a heart of gold.

Like we said at the start, everything whizzes by at hyperkinetic speed, and within a one-and-a-half hours, Petey will resurrect a diabolical dead fish Flippy (Ricky Gervais) whose singular mission is to destroy all do-gooders, while Dog Man will come to adopt Li’l Petey as his own after the latter is abandoned by Petey. From a robot henchman called 80HD (get it?), to Dog Man howling along to the song ‘I’m So Lonely I Could Cry’, and to Li’l Petey uttering a G-rated version of Bruce Willis’ iconic ‘Die Hard’ line, there are plenty of wink-wink, tongue-in-cheek references that come at you frenetically.

To writer-director Hastings’ credit (in case you’re wondering, he is also the voice of Dog Man), ‘Dog Man’ does not lose its audience along the way – not only does he pack the chase with a good mix of cartoonish mayhem for the young and throwaway gags for adults, he also manages to wring a surprising level of poignancy in Petey’s relationship with his cloned son, even putting aside his villainous instincts in order to make the world a better place for Li’l Petey.

Unlike the usual Dreamworks fare, ‘Dog Man’ has a distinctly scrappy animation style, packed with all sorts of visually imaginative flourishes. It also brings to life Pilkey’s sharp-angled 2D designs through modern computer-generated animation, lending it texture and dimensionality that often recalls stop-motion. It is pretty inspired to say the least, and perfectly suited for its source material we must add.

So even though we did not expect much from ‘Dog Man’, we must say we were pretty entertained by this delightfully zany adaptation of the bestselling comic series. Chances are if you’re stepping into the cinema for this that it will be because your kids have dragged you into it, but there are frankly a lot worse ways to kill time with your kids; as long as you’re prepared to have some fast, furious and frenetic fun, you’ll find ‘Dog Man’ a pretty enjoyable blend of everything silly to chew over.

Movie Rating:

(Part cop flick, part superhero saga, and all anarchically madcap fun, this adaptation of Dav Pilkey's bestselling comic series is exhilarating family-friendly delightful)

Review by Gabriel Chong