A One Mann’s Movies review of “Dog Man” (2025).
The 5-year old in question was my grandson Jack. I love taking Jack to the cinema. As long as the film is not too scary, he’s an avid viewer and loves the experience, particularly with a big box of sweet popcorn! And he really enjoyed “Dog Man” as a manic blast of DreamWorks Animation madness: but I think the plot was so crazy he struggled to comprehend it. I don’t blame him!
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
“Dog Man” Plot:
After a bomb defusal goes wrong, a policeman has a wrecked head but a fit body and his police dog has a good head but a wrecked body. The doctors have a solution: graft the dog’s head onto the man’s body, creating ‘Dog Man’! Fortunately, the dog was always way smarter than the policeman! Now Dog Man must take on his nemesis, the supervillain Petey the Cat (Pete Davidson) who not only has a cloning machine and a green spray that brings things to life but also robotically reengineers an evil fish called Flippy (Ricky Gervais).
Certification:
UK: U; US: PG. (From the BBFC web site: “Very mild threat, violence, rude humour, language, upsetting scenes”)
Talent:
Starring: Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery, Poppy Liu, Isla Fisher, Billy Boyd, Ricky Gervais.
Directed by: Peter Hastings.
Written by: Peter Hastings. (Based on the book series by Dav Pilkey.)
Running Time: 1h 29m.
“Dog Man” Summary:
Positives:
- In the spirit of the Dav Pikey books, the film is full of riotously funny sight gags.
- The action is non-stop and has manic energy.
Negatives:
- The plot is incredibly convoluted.
Review of “Dog Man”:
One for the kids; one for the adults.
Early on in this film, the police team are chasing Petey the cat through the streets of the city and have to swerve around two men carrying a “Box of B’s” across the road. You obviously expect a loud buzzing swarm of the insects to angrily emerge. But no, scattered across the highways are several large letter B’s! I laughed. Hard. It sums up the childish and sometimes surprisingly surreal nature of the comedy on offer here. Things like this will often go over the heads of the younger audience: they are deliberately there for the adults and it made me immediately warm to the film. There was going to be a lot for me here.
A laugh a minute.
So it proved to be. There were countless moments where I laughed out loud, far more than the mandatory six required for a “comedy”. A sequence where Petey is captured, escapes and is recaptured by Dog Man goes on and on and on, with ever-increasingly innovative means of escape and increasingly short snippets of each action. I loved it. And Jack beside me was laughing too – not always at the same bits!
It typifies the utterly manic energy of the film. It’s quite exhausting to watch!
A really convoluted plot.
The title of my post comes from the moment that I returned young Jack to his parents and they asked him “What happened Jack?”. (I stayed silent at this point). He was able to elucidate that there was an accident and Dog Man was half man/half dog. He was also able to talk about the evil cat, his Mini-Me-style clone, an evil fish and how at some point there was a green spray and buildings came to life and they were a bit frightening. But all of this was a bit of a struggle and I don’t think he was fully able to tie all of the loose ends together to create a coherent plot.
The reason for this was explained by another of my grandkids, Harry – aged 8. Apparently this film is a bolting together of three different Dav Pikey Dog Man stories. It explains how it comes across as jerky and spasmodic in its storytelling.
Summary Thoughts on “Dog Man”
It’s loud, frenetic and exhausting. But its also a lot of fun: something that the young can really enjoy and the old can, at a minimum, endure! I thought it was very funny and it made for a memorable cinema trip with young Jack.
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
Trailer for “Dog Man”:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxJtp_9SpU.
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