{"id":10973,"date":"2025-02-01T19:52:53","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T00:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=10973"},"modified":"2025-03-22T19:15:44","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T23:15:44","slug":"dog-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/02\/01\/dog-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Dog Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dog Man<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Comedy-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (some action and rude humor)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Peter Hastings\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Peter Hastings\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Tom Howe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 31, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, Lucas Hopkins Calderon, Ricky Gervais, Billy Boyd, Stephen Root, Poppy Liu, Cheri Oteri, Peter Hastings, Rahnuma Panthaky, Maggie Wheeler, Luenell, Melissa Villasenor, Laraine Newman, Kate Micucci, Brian Hopkins.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I didn\u2019t grow up with the Captain Underpants graphic novels. They came along long after I outgrew children\u2019s lit. I saw the first movie Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie back when it came out in 2017. I liked it a lot. It was zany and silly. I didn\u2019t know Dog Man<\/strong> was a spin-off until one of the managers at my multiplex of choice told me. He loved Dav Pilkey\u2019s books growing up. He still does. He says he can\u2019t wait to check out the movie. I think he\u2019s going to love it. Me, I liked it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Written and directed by Peter Hastings, Dog Man<\/strong> starts off by explaining how the title character came to be. While trying to apprehend criminal cat Petey (Davidson, SNL), a human cop and his canine partner try and fail to defuse a bomb. Due to the nature of their injuries, it\u2019s determined that the only way to save them both is to surgically attach the dog\u2019s head to the man\u2019s body. Thus, Dog Man is born. He proceeds to become a celebrity crimefighter much to the aggravation of his grumpy CO (Howery, Get Out).<\/p>\n

\u00a0Petey proves to be a real challenge. Every time Dog Man puts him in Cat Jail, he manages to escape. The mayor of Ohkay City (Oteri, SNL) orders the Chief to take Dog Man off the case. The cop, who lost his home and girlfriend after the explosion, feels more alone than ever.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Meanwhile, Petey comes to the realization that if he\u2019s going to defeat Dog Man, he\u2019s going to need someone like him to help. He orders a cloning machine to create another him. Instead, he ends up with a kitten who\u2019s the complete opposite of him. Li\u2019l Petey (Calderon) isn\u2019t a villain; he\u2019s an innocent child who knows only love and goodness. What\u2019s a bad guy to do?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Petey comes up with a new plan for world domination. This one involves reviving a dead fish named Flippy (Gervais, The Office) who, in life, was a powerful telekinetic supervillain. This turns out to be a BIG mistake, one that necessitates hero and villain to work together to save their city from a greater threat.<\/p>\n

\u00a0We\u2019re living in uncertain times right now. It\u2019s actually scary out there. Dog Man<\/strong> came along at just the right time. It\u2019s not going to change the world or how we think, but it serves as a nice two-hour escape from all the madness out there. It\u2019s not just the movie; it\u2019s the presentation. It starts with a cartoon short starring \u201cThe Bad Guys\u201d from the 2022 film (the sequel comes out in August). In it, they cause chaos as they try to get to a meeting with their parole officer on time. This is how Disney used to do it when I was a kid. They gave us a short before the main feature. It\u2019s nice to see this tradition brought back.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As for the film itself, Dog Man<\/strong> is pretty good. It\u2019s fast, funny, vibrant and energetic. The joke setting is on rapid fire. It has a lot of good sight gags and clever references for adults including cleaned-up variations of famous lines from Aliens and Die Hard. Admittedly, it can be exhausting, but it won\u2019t faze the kids. They\u2019ll be so hopped up on sugar (they do love their ICEE drinks!); it\u2019ll take more than that to bring them down. Thankfully, Hastings balances things out by allowing Dog Man<\/strong> to show its sweet side. It has something to say about the importance of family with Petey finding his paternal side with Li\u2019l Petey despite not having a positive male role model when he was growing up.<\/p>\n

The animation in Dog Man<\/strong> is colorful and textured. It looks just like the illustrations in the graphic novels. It pulsates with life and energy.<\/em> It\u2019s a welcome break from commonplace computer-animation. There\u2019s plenty of action including a climax in which buildings come to life to crush the heroes. It\u2019s really a sight to behold. I\u2019d even say Dog Man<\/strong> is a work of art.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The voice talents, which include Isla Fisher (Strays) as reporter Sarah Hatoff, do a fine job. Hastings provides the dog noises for the main character. He sounds like the real thing as opposed to a human imitating a dog. Davidson is good as Petey the evil cat. He sounds like he\u2019s having a ball. Howery nearly steals the shows as Dog Man\u2019s exasperated boss. He does heroic things too. Why doesn\u2019t anybody acknowledge it? Why does everybody pay more attention to the dog-human hybrid? Gervais is perfect as Flippy the fish fatale. A villain sounds more villainous with a British accent, does he not?<\/p>\n

\u00a0I know this isn\u2019t what Disney enthusiasts want to hear, but I had more fun with Dog Man<\/strong> than either Moana 2 or Mufasa. They were fine, but Dog Man<\/strong> is next level stuff. I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s great, but I\u2019d definitely say it\u2019s good. It sure is different from other animated films. Fans of the books are going to love it. Non-fans (meaning those unfamiliar) will like it too. I know I did.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dog Man (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Comedy-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (some action and rude humor)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Peter Hastings\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Peter Hastings\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Tom Howe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 31, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, Lucas Hopkins Calderon, Ricky Gervais, Billy Boyd, Stephen Root, Poppy Liu, Cheri Oteri, Peter Hastings, Rahnuma Panthaky, Maggie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11007,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Dog-Man-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C775&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10973"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11543,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10973\/revisions\/11543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}