Initially, I was surprised by the animated nature of this reboot of the monster/horror/thriller series followup to Universal’s Invisible Man (2020). The trailers had made it seem like Christopher Abbot would be in human form for a lot longer in the movie and the clear copaganda bias really instantly dates the film and then I realized that this was not Wolfman and I was in a children’s movie helmed by the guy who wrote the Captain Underpants books and I was once again okay.
Actually, I should say this movie is one of the most entertaining kid’s movies I’ve seen in a year. From the company that’s remaking How To Train Your Dragon, one of the indisputably perfect animated films of the last decade, how did they make this??? And the copaganda joke is kind of a low blow, you are gonna HOPE that all cops are as kind-hearted and competent as Dogman. My monster came out of this one offhandedly saying, “I hate cats.” The SAME monster who had such savage things to say about dogs not a month and a half ago in Flow. The chaotic absurdist energy of Dogman is restrained and grounded in some powerful emotional stories about loyalty and forgiveness: Dogman’s girlfriend abandons him before he’s even been discharged from the hospital and the “naughty Cat” Petey (my Monster) played by Pete Davidson plays a truly complex villain who resists Flanderization.
I think the first joke that revealed the kind of humor that would persist for the rest of the movie was when Knight and his dog are in a police car about to take a ramp into the air in pursuit of Petey when Knight asks the dog to take care of his girlfriend if anything happens and THEN the dog barks a bit and you see a closeup of his tennis ball in the same style as the cop’s girlfriend’s photo was just displayed. There’s this other sequence where the police chief seems like he’s about to reveal some cool tech to Dogman for his mission and instead, his secret desk tunnel ends up being an elaborate loop that leads to a shoebox he keeps under the desk with some toy binoculars inside–just dumb stuff like that that really gets you when you’re bracing yourself for whatever the fuck stupid shit kids movies usually do.
I cannot recommend this highly enough. Don’t let your preconceptions about what this is supposed to be get in the way of your enjoyment.
