Film Review: Dog Man (2025)
“The perfect amount of goofiness to make a kid roll on the floor while keeping the parent from rolling their eyes.”
Directed by Peter Hastings and featuring the voices of Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher, and Ricky Gervais, Dog Man is the kind of movie that your kids might love while you, the adult, hover somewhere between mildly entertained and vaguely confused about how you got here.
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Based on the wildly popular graphic novels, Dog Man blends juvenile humor, action-hero antics, and just enough moral messaging to qualify as a “family movie” without ever taking itself too seriously. There’s a surprising darkness to its premise — our titular hero is a half-dog, half-man crimefighter born from a police officer and his K9 partner after an explosion — but the film introduces it with such cartoon absurdity that it goes down easy, even for the younger viewers.
To be honest, I’m still not sure how I feel about it. I walked out thinking I liked it. My kids definitely liked it. But the longer I sat with it, the more I questioned whether I enjoyed the movie or just enjoyed watching them enjoy it. (Dog Man may have been the real winner there.)
Performance-wise, the voice cast is solid. Pete Davidson is doing Pete Davidson things, Lil Rel has energy to spare, and Ricky Gervais drops just enough snark to give the film its PG bite. The animation is clean, kinetic, and styled to reflect the comic book roots without going full chaos.
In the end, it’s hard to critique DogMan the way you would a traditional film — it’s more of a sensory cartoon hour with just enough heart to matter. It’s not deep. It’s not polished. But it knows exactly who it’s for.
Crown Status:
If you’re a kid, it’s a howling good time. If you’re a parent, you’ll survive just fine — and hey, maybe that’s a win.
