Dog Man | Review
© DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks’ adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man graphic novel is goofy, chaotic, beautifully animated fun. For the uninitiated, the film appears as a standalone story, but in reality is a cleverly made spin off from 2017’s Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie. Its director, Peter Hastings, has previous experience in the Underpants-verse, having produced the ongoing series The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants in Space, along with myriad other DreamWorks shows. Hastings has been a staple of the studio since 2011 prior to taking up the director’s chair himself.
Hastings’ debut is fresh and energetic in its own right, but is yet another example of DreamWorks’ experimentation with CG animation, looking for increasingly absurd ways to squash and stretch photoreal animation into something more stylised, while fitting the story they tell. The texture and surreality of Dog Man’s art style helps sell its insane storyline; a police officer and his canine who get into a terrible accident (the color blind dog taking the lead on defusing a bomb), the only solution to which is to attach the head of one onto the other, creating a dog-man hybrid who becomes the arch enemy of supervillain Petey the Cat.
More than any character, animation is the star of the show in Dog Man. Backgrounds and objects feel like the fodder of primary school art classes in the most charming way. The bustling Ohkay cityscape is dominated by wonky skyscrapers. Objects like cars and houses look like pieces of cardboard stuck together, then roughly painted, allowing you to see brushstrokes and areas that could do with a second coat. Wonderfully sketchy 2D effects pop out from the aftermath of explosions and car chases, like smoke emanating from under tyres. Even things like speed lines are extra wonky and available for the characters to physically interact with.
© DreamWorks Animation
There is such a strong sense of style and roughness in the world that the characters look jarringly smooth in comparison. There is an effort made to drop the frame rates on some characters and everyone is given very simple facial features, consisting of dots and lines like you’d draw with a pencil, and the oversized heads lean into the stylised look too. However, the skin textures are found lacking, making their overwhelming smoothness out of place compared to the rest of the world.
Smoothness isn’t exactly present in the writing either, but that’s part of the film’s charm. The story is very, very messy which is forgivable because of how much of an adrenaline rush the rest of the movie is. When you come out of the cinema and play it back in your memory, the movie feels like it’s 30 mins long. Plenty happens in the story, but you’re not given any time to grow bored of one joke, location, or story beat. This stops the film from feeling complete, but helps it lean into the fun.
The humour is fantastic in the silliest way imaginable. There’s a bit of Wallace & Gromit or Simpsons DNA in there where every single person who lives in this city just happens to be an absolute idiot. The scene where the idea that man and dog be combined is one of the funniest you’ll see all year. There’s also an underlying love story between the chief of police and news reporter Sarah Hatoff that is delivered in three lines spread across the movie.
© DreamWorks Animation
Even as absurd images, jokes and character decisions are thrown at you at a crazy rate and your understanding of the motivations for most characters is lost, you never feel confused about what’s running through the minds of the two protagonists, Dog Man and Petey. Dog Man is looking to rebuild his network of family and friends, essentially starting over from scratch after the accident, meanwhile Petey needs to accept family when he has it forced upon him after he births a baby clone version of himself. Their arcs are taken good care of through all the madness, resolving in satisfying ways while accompanied by some gorgeous imagery.
Dog Man is great fun and is another example of the flexibility in storytelling and art style that DreamWorks are capable of. This, along with their last film, The Wild Robot, tackle completely different tones, genres and art styles, sharing only the desire to experiment. The Wild Robot’s focus is catharsis and the characters’ emotional journey, while Dog Man shoots straight for comedy. They aren’t immediately recognisable as movies from the same studio, something we’re not so used to with American animation where studios like Pixar and Disney stick to similar looks and stories. Dog Man is a good film that’s good for the ecosystem of American animation.