Dogman, directed by Peter Hastings, follows a dog-police-man hybrid, the result of an experimental surgery to save both a human police officer and his dog. This movie is an adaptation of the hit book series by the same name written by Dav Pilkey, that does service to the series’ absurd goofiness. 

The biggest positive of this movie is the animation. We have entered a wonderful era of animation where artists have become increasingly expressive with the styles and designs they choose to incorporate. This movie is no exception to this trend. Following in the steps of movies like TMNT Mutant Mayhem, this movie carries a loose, eccentric, colorful aesthetic that perfectly represents the style of the actual book series. Regardless of the plot, or the scene’s context, every frame in this movie was very visually pleasing and improved my enjoyment; however, this is pretty much where my enjoyment ends. 

This movie lacks a lot of the charm that’s necessary to pull off the wackiness of the plot– a plot that is, frankly, almost nonexistent. The first hour of this movie just feels like putting the same three or four characters in slightly different scenarios, most of which were exclusively to set up a random one-off gag. Then over the last thirty minutes, they do their best to tie it together. Part of the issue of this movie could come from its director. Hastings’s past work is almost exclusively TV series, which would explain a lot of this movie’s pacing issues. This movie fully felt like 4 episodes of a Netflix mini-series, cut down and strung together for a movie. Don’t get me wrong there was some big potential in here, especially with the plot lines following the character Lil Petey, but the bizarre pace and lack of a structured story basically ruined it.

Unfortunately, this movie falls into the trope of goofy “kid’s movies” that lack nearly any plot at the expense of jokes and silly imagery. It’s disappointing to see a movie like this, with really unique animation, falling so short of being a good movie. Movies like this open up the conversation about what a movie “made for kids” really should be. It’s very typical in the modern world for poorly made children’s movies to come out with the excuse that it’s “just for kids.” When we get movies like Dogman, any criticism can be brushed off because of the movie’s target audience, but that’s not how movies should be. Just because the audience is younger doesn’t mean the content can’t be well-written, coherent, and meaningful. Look at other “kids” content from the past few years, such as Into the Spiderverse, Bluey, or Wild Robot. All that media was geared toward kids but still provided some of the best most emotional feats of storytelling of recent years. While it may have been true in the past, unfortunately, something being “made for kids” is no longer an excuse, and we need to be putting more care and effort into the content that we feed our younger generation.  

All in all, this movie is exactly what you would expect. It has its silly moments and almost no plot. But if you’re a fan of this book franchise, you’ll probably enjoy this movie. It does an excellent job of capturing the essence of both of Dav Pilkey’s works (Captain Underpants and Dog Man novels). I would give this movie a 1 out of 5 overall with really only the animation saving it. If you are looking for something to watch this weekend, I would definitely consider some alternative options before settling on this one.