If you, like me, are not in contact with primary school children, you will be blissfully unaware of the Dog Man franchise. A book series from the same author as the Captain Underpants books – which had a surprisingly good film of its own in 2018. His latest adaptation, keeps the cheap-looking animation of that film, with a silly premise of its own. Robocop for kids, where after a fatal accident, to save both a police officer and his dog, they have their bodies merged into the titular character. The first of three films this year with a Frankenstein-esque transformation.
Dog Man begins the film by hunting down arch nemesis, and causer of the life-changing accident, Petey the Cat. The pair play cat and mouse (or should I say dog and cat) in the opening act in a montage that shows Dog Man catching Petey, only for him to find ways of escaping. It becomes increasingly silly, tiringly so – is this all the film has to offer?
But after this sluggish opening act, the film gets moving with the introduction of a new character. Petey decides, that in order to defeat Dog Man he needs some help, in the form of a clone. However, his plan is unsuccessful, with his clone a much younger and more innocent version of himself, who is adopted by Dog Man and moves into his Tardis-like Kennel. What follows is a slowly compelling tale about parenthood and forgiveness.
This Robocop for Kids storyline is inherently silly. It is full of high-energy characters and slap in the face personality. If you can’t do silly, you won’t get on with the film. Whilst it is a little much at times, the film gets away with it as it is fully self-aware in its aesthetic. It is having fun with the medium (although this kind of self-deprecating self-awareness has been done before), such as having obnoxiously large signs pointing to the villain’s lair, whilst there are just enough jokes about air fryers to keep older audiences engaged.
However, the film isn’t really doing much else. The parenthood strand of the film feels tacked on, more interested in catering a visually loud aesthetic catered to children no older than 8. At times the kindergarten level storytelling does feel a little tiring. However, the film won me over slightly by the end with a charming finale, which helped with easily the film’s best line “flippy kay-e flippy flipper”. Whilst I won’t be running back to the cinema if there is a sequel, it should be a hit with the younger audience.
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