Dog Man ★★★

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All (Ordinary) Hero

“Part Dog. Part Man. All Hero.” It’s a great mantra, funny every time you say it, and it made 2 Film Critics want to see the film.

The humor flies by as fast as the characters—here, Dog Man (voice of Peter Hastings)

followed by reporter Sarah Hatoff (voice of Isla Fisher) and her cameraman,

run past one of the comically named enterprises:

Joe'z Cup of Joe (and in the windows, "No potty!" and "Supa Wifi").

What’s odd is that Dog Man—he’s the product of surgeons who combine the body of a (dying) policeman and the head of a (dying) police dog—isn’t “All Hero.” He certainly isn’t a superhero; he doesn’t have superhuman strength and he can’t fly. When he challenges the huge, mechanized buildings (with legs and mouths and voices) that are some of the “bad guys” in the film, he does so by manipulating the mechanical controls of a giant robot.

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At best he’s an “ordinary hero," and very ordinary at that, though he does play piano.

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Dog Man doesn’t even have what one might imagine are the best traits of dogs and men: a great sense of smell on the one hand, a rational mind on the other. He doesn’t use his sniffer to find crooks, and although he may be thinking “deep thoughts,” his communication skills are limited to barking, howling, murmuring, and licking the face of anyone who says “good dog.” He’s not even fearless, squirrels being his bête noire. At best he’s an “ordinary hero” (all the rage since about 1980) and very ordinary at that, though he does play piano—with “hands” that are paw-like, even though his body is supposedly all man. He lives in an ordinary-looking doghouse, that “looks larger inside.” So if you’re waiting for “All Hero” to show up, you’ll be disappointed.

Endearing is a pervasive quality of the film. Above, Dog Man (Hastings)

rescues Li'l Petey (voice of Lucas Hopkins Calderon), who's been

abandoned by his father. The naïve drawings of the cityscape surround them.

Dog Man operates in an urban metropolis, though it’s got a rather primitive look, as if its buildings had been designed by the author of the 1974 classic, Big Joe’s Trailer Truck, and its characters, including Dog Man, drawn by a small child. It’s naïve art from the original Dog Man books (13 of them) by Dav Pilkey, who brought the world Captain Underpants, beloved (we’re told) by many. The animation is from Disney’s DreamWorks; so you know even when it seems a bit cluttered and klutzy, it’s intentional, lending artistic weight to the “endearing” quality of the film.

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In a scene out of Trump’s playbook....

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Like Batman’s Gotham, the city in which Dog Man prowls has seen better days (one of its buildings is the Abandoned Expendable Warehouse, subject of jokes about getting everyone [it’s abandoned!] out before a bomb goes off, another the Irrelevance Café) and is besieged by an evil master-criminal, an orange, biped cat named Petey. In a scene out of Trump’s playbook, Petey has just fired his office assistant—sassy, like most of the women characters—while expecting that she will continue to work for him.

Evil biped cat Petey (voice of Pete Davidson) reviews the instructions for the clone

he's made to help him

in his pursuit of Dog Man.

Only, as the instructions say, "Step 4: wait 18 years for your clone to reach adulthood."

“Dog Man” takes its most important turn when Petey, determined to find someone just as evil as he is to share the joy in defeating Supa Cop Dog Man and in eliminating all “do-gooders,” clones himself (picking a cloning machine from an online catalog after sorting through many air fryers), only to discover that he’s now the father of Li’l Petey, who’s tiny, innocent, adorable (superbly voiced by a new talent, child actor Lucas Hopkins Calderon) and not at all evil. Li’l Petey needs to go potty frequently and requires a seat belt. His favorite word is “why.” Parenthood.

The police chief (Lil Rey Howery) is provided with some of the better comic lines, including the repeated joke about his priorities. Not running out of toilet paper takes precedence over capturing Petey.

You can guess where director Peter Hastings (Emmy-award winner for his “Kung Fu Panda” children’s animated TV series) is going, and he will go there, though it’ll take a while and there will some twists and turns. There will be a visit from Petey’s evil, unshaven father (voice of Monroe Fuches, the villain in TV’s “Barry”) and the emergence of yet another purveyor of evil, Fishy (voice of Ricky Gervais), whose backstory is that he was bullied at school, called “Fatty Fish Face”—”maybe all you need is a friend,” suggests Li’l Petey—and who wouldn’t exist were it not for a clueless scientist, voiced by Laraine Newman, an SNL veteran. Older folks in the audience will likely be glad to see the pace slow down, if only to be able to appreciate those moments of irony intended for adults (SNL’s Pete Davidson voices Petey). The police chief (Lil Rel Howery) is a regular source of humor, more concerned about the station’s supply of toilet paper than capturing Petey, and there’s entertaining commentary by an overly ambitious reporter, Sarah Hatoff, voiced by Isla Fisher.

For our tastes (we’re not 12 anymore), “Dog Man” is over-loaded with frenetic, over-the-top action, not sufficiently creatively conceived or purposeful. It produces some chuckles and a few laughs—too few, even from the kids down the row from us. Oddly enough, the film is rich with ideas. Eggheads who may have mistakenly wandered into the film—or, as in our case, were taken with its “Part Dog/Part Man/All Hero” tag line—will find some meaty bones to gnaw on: sudden parenthood, fathers and sons, the concept of love (“it’s not a thing, but something you do,” says Li’l Petey), environment vs genetics (will Grampa change his ways?), the perils of cloning, the nature of evil, bureaucratic incompetence, the quality of urban life. Plenty of nutrition there. Or you can sit back (these days, lie back) and enjoy the show; above all, it’s endearing. Just don’t expect too much from Dog Man.

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He says: I wanted Dog Man to kick ass, but he’s not built for it.

She says: It’s no The Simpsons, and Pilkey is no Matt Groening, but even though I thought of walking out in those frenetic first 20 minutes, thinking it just wasn't for me, in the end I still kinda sorta liked it.

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Date: 2025

Director: Peter Hastings

Starring: Voices of: Pete Davidson, Lil Rey Howery, Peter Hastings (the director and writer voices several characters, including Dog Man), Lucas Hopkins Calderon, Isla Fisher, Ricky Gervais, Monroe Fuches

Runtime: 89 minutes

Country: United States

Language: English

Other Awards: None to date