Dog Man

Going in

Alright, so I have been hearing about this movie for months now, and I have been sold on it since I saw the first trailer. Between the animation style that reminds me of the all-too-funny captain underpants, the excellently crafted remix of Daft Punk’s “harder, better, faster, stronger,” and the fact that I haven’t been to AMC in a month, I am hyped to go see this movie! Despite going to the movies every week, it is somewhat rare that I find myself looking forward to a movie that often. It feels good to be looking forward to something.

Aside from the above, I’m looking forward to a simple, fun time. The movie seems to be light and silly. I’m anticipating more than a few jokes about cats, dogs and their differences. I’m a cat person, so I’m hoping that this doesn’t detract from my moviegoing experience. I’m just hoping for some “over-the-top” fun. Not every movie has to have deep character motivations and brilliantly fresh plots. Sometimes, it’s fine to just go back to basics.

One weird thing I’m finding, though, is that I know none of the cast. Usually I can recognize one or two voices, but I read the cast list earlier and I actually knew no one. This is a very rare occasion indeed and I’m hoping to have a half dozen movies in the next year where I recognize the voices specifically from dogman. 

Hollywood, make it happen.

I’m also sold on this movie because it taps on my Achilles heel: superheroes. Though I bash the MCU harder than the next three guys combined, the genre is still one of my favorites. I’m wondering how much of that will come into play as I step into the theater tonight. As of now, it has a 74% on rotten tomatoes, a 5 out of 10 on screen rant and an 8.6 out of 10 on IMDb. I’d say that’s not too bad, but not the next masterpiece. But if there’s anything true of me, it’s that I don’t take any form of reception as absolute. I can have a good time with a movie despite the odds. After all, my favorite Spider-Man series was Andrew Garfield’s movies. Sorry if that ruined your view of me. 

So that’s my impressions and pre-movie thoughts. I have to go run a few errands before we get this party started.

Coming Out

Oh man, I could not have asked for a better movie to start 2025! I’ll start by saying this: the trailers leave out a lot. I thought I had a good idea of where the plot was going to go based off of the trailers, but that wound up being the first fifteen minutes of the movie. Where it goes there, I will leave you to discover. The movie is more fun when you discover it for yourself. 

I’m also aware that it’s based on a graphic novel series. I knew that this was a thing, but I had never read any of them. I was going in blind and I don’t know how surprised you’ll be if you are familiar with the source material. But you don’t have to be to fully enjoy this movie. It’s a simple premise: cop gets in an accident with his dog, and the dog’s head goes on the man’s body. It’s in the trailer, that’s not a spoiler.

But where it goes from there totally is. And I want to give my most emphatic applause to the creators of the trailer, because it gave absolutely nothing of the main plot away. It didn’t even give away its best punchlines, as many comedy trailers tend to do. But I almost feel conflicted about this, as there’s an entire experience that people may or may not know that they’re getting into. I don’t mean to say that they should have given away more, but I fear that what the trailer did provide won’t bring out enough of an audience. I just don’t want all that good content going to waste. 

 The humor is where this movie really shines. I know a lot of comedies that are sorta, kinda, maybe-ish funny every now and then, but this is not one of those. I want to go in again with a stopwatch to see what the longest gap between jokes is. I don’t think it’s over five seconds, honestly. Jokes are everywhere, and it rarely feels like it gets old. It feels like it is what it should be: an over-the-top good time. I’m not exaggerating when I say my throat hurts from the two hours I just spent laughing in the theater. I laughed my way through the entire end credits, my drive home, and a good fifteen minutes of being home. Guys, this is a movie that you don’t want to miss! 

Aside from the over-the-top humor, I honestly don’t know what else to say about this movie. The characters were simple, the art style was different, and the plot kept itself moving right along. A saw a few people complain about this fast-paced plot, but honestly-it just adds to the hilarity. The movie isn’t just funny because it’s loaded up with punchlines, but the plot takes some wild turns, bringing along some ridiculous nonsense along the way. 

So I would call this “screw it, let’s add that!” the movie. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone’s five-year-old was helping to write the script, but I mean that in the best way possible. I believe this is what comedy should really look like. I love a good “one size fits all” like fight club, or bruce almighty, but if comedy is all about making people laugh, then I should get two hours of knee-slapping, laugh-till-you-cry fun. And that’s what I got with this movie.

And as far as the whole “super hero stops bad guy” thing, I’d say that itch was scratched (pun intended.) Maybe not in the way I was originally expecting, but it definitely had that element. But it was far more than a simple superhero story. It was a wild ride that refused to slow down. As everything unfolded, I had a twinge of fear that they were introducing too many moving parts. Many of the side characters were given little bits of personality that felt like they would all play major roles later. Some of them did, and other parts turned out to be well built-up punchlines. I’d say everything fit snugly together in the end. 

Last thing I have to say for this movie is the attention to detail. Humor isn’t just caked all over the walls of the front, it’s also in the background elements too. I noticed a newspaper flashing by with an ad that read “free baby.” Even after a few minutes of good fun, that caught me off guard. And it creates a sense of rewatchability. I have found myself wanting to go again to see what little things I might have missed. Some movies I encourage people to watch, but only a few will I happily go see again with them if it means they’ll get to enjoy it themselves. This is one of those that I would happily go re-see if I felt like heading to the movies, but had nothing else playing. 

Normally, I like to argue that you should just go with whatever your gut was saying already. I like to say something like “If you had an interest in this movie when you saw the trailers, it won’t disappoint. If you saw it and felt a wave of ‘meh’ come over you, then this won’t change that.” That’s normally a pretty good way to go about things, but today I want to go against that. There’s a lot of good, fun content that isn’t revealed in the trailers and I think you should highly consider taking the kids to go see this one.

But don’t just consider it if you have kids. That’s the fun of it: it really does do a little something for everyone, as all good “kids” movies should. Like I said, it’s especially true if you have a good eye for detail. Those little things will add to the already-hilarious schlop that this movie already is. Just make sure to have something clever to say when your kids ask why you’re laughing at a seemingly random moment. I wouldn’t say it’s on the same level as Shrek, where you’ll be asking yourself later why you let your kids get away with watching it, but you’ll definitely have one or two moments where you’ll be asking if they really slipped that joke in there. 

So overall, I’d give this a fun meter of 90%. It’s good and simple, yet filled to the brim with laughs that stay fresh. It’s just as it should be. And it needn’t be anything more. 

So what did you think of it? Did you love it like I did, or did you want a refund on your precious free time? Let me know, and I’ll see you on the next one!