Jan 31

Jan 31 'Dogman' film review: Woof.

Kids movies are generally held by a lower standard - but even with these lowered expectations 'Dogman' (in theaters Jan. 31) is confusing.

In short: Dog Man - a half dog and half man police officer - protects the city from the feline supervillain Petey the Cat. Stars Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, Billy Boyd and Ricky Gervais.

'Dogman' ... knows its target audience, which is obviously children. The plot (as thin as it is) is childish. The jokes are childish. The character design is childish. While there's a weak attempt at establishing some sort of character depth, it's a half-hearted effort undermined by fart jokes.

Let’s start with the premise: the titular character ‘Dogman’ is the Frankenstein and travesty of medical science in that an accident prompts doctors to stitch the head of a super smart dog to the super strong body of a mortally wounded police officer. The entire conceit of 'Dogman' is that the main character is part dog and part man - yet 'Dogman' doesn't justify this at all.

Allegedly the dog is super smart but confined to a canine body. Allegedly the human was super strong but ruled by an idiotic brain. At some point it would have been kinda cool to see 'Dogman' out think a situation or overpower an enemy with pure brute force. Yet 'Dogman' is just literally a man with a dog smushed on his body ... who does backflips ... and cannot talk. Probably because 'Dogman' is based on a graphic novel, the character is also denied any sort of inner monologue. The cumulative result: is hero obsessed with playing catch, doing backflips and defeating his archnemesis - and he can't speak.

Just below the surface is an undercurrent of sadness shared by many, if not all, of the characters - something resembling a dramatic core. After Dogman's procedure/origin story, he is abandoned by his former human girlfriend. Petey, an supervillian cat intent on defeating Dogman (for some reason), was himself abandoned by his father. Li'l Petey is similarly abandoned and taken in by Dogman. The police chief ... randomly has an unrequited crush for a TV reporter. For an overtly silly movie about a superhero dog fighting a supervillain cat, 'Dogman' steeps its characters in sadness ... and the story does nothing with these threads of longing. This wasted potential is frustrating. This thematic core is likely adapted from the source material - but this film just doesn't know what to do with these themes or feelings. It just touches on some universal feelings of longing and sadness - then smash cuts to giant robots fighting or poop jokes.

Li'l Petey, an adorable kitten-aged character, is the only part of 'Dogman' that works. He finally gives Dogman something to do. He antagonizes the supervillain cat Petey. And he doesn't even appear until almost 40 minutes into this 90-minute movie. And this is a LONG 90 minutes. And anytime a movie "feels long," this is merely a symptom of the audience's awareness of almost nothing happening plot-wise or character-wise.

At some point of the movie, a dangerous threat falls down a vent and teeters on the edge of reawakening ... then the movie forgets about this threat for many, many pointless and childish scenes. The audience expects this threat, on the brink of once again bringing havoc back to the city, to immediately imperil the city -- but no. It simply sits on the edge of endangering the city, until the movie runs out of steam and just needs some plot device to occur to kick start this lumbering mess.

Final verdict: 'Dogman' would probably work better as a Saturday morning cartoon. No one would mistake this as high art but unburdened by much thought, silly kids might be temporarily amused by this dim movie.