Film Review - Dog Man
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Dreamworks has been on a roll lately — Puss In Boots: The Last Wish and The Bad Guys had offered a fresh look, relatable characters, and witty fun to the animated family film genre, but Dog Man fails to live up to its studio mate’s achievements. Frankly, Dog Man’s not complete dog food but it’s not a complete meal either. Based on the extremely popular children’s graphic novel of the same name, this film was always going to be a guaranteed success for the studio. The safety of this guaranteed success makes for an exceedingly flat film.
First is the appealing flatness — the art and animation is strangely literally flat, with many of its in motion sequences feeling distinctly comic-booky in a diorama-like fashion. It’s unambiguously a good thing that Dog Man is part of the deluge of unique looking animated films. The downside is some scenes feel oddly static, particularly ones involving dialogue or narrative. This flattened style allows for the more dynamic scenes to really shine as though adapted from the page and imaginations of readers.
Alas this flatness extends beyond art style and straight into its storytelling. The story operates on a breakneck pace where nothing feels consequential and plot developments materialise out of thin air. Unfortunately there’s none of the childlike sense of play found in similarly paced films like the Lego-movie franchise to justify this speed. Why slow down for interiority or pathos? Dog Man prefers to hit stale kids’ movie notes of family and acceptance in a completely uninspired way. Nothing in this film feels as though it’s happening as the result of actual character motivations, creating zero dramatic tension. Even the most disengaged iPad babies will find themselves wishing for a little more from these characters. The vocal performances fail to bring much joy to the dull writing. Most damning is Ricky Gervais’ grating performance as telekinetic-undead-cyborg-fish-supervillain Flippy. At least Flippy’s screen time is mercifully brief, saving the audience from the phoned-in voice work.
The soundtrack is worth mentioning too, in this case for its complete lack of daring. The 60’s spy show inspired tunes are so bland they’d make plausible stock music and offer nothing to buoy the film’s attention addled pacing. Like most of the creative choices in this film it gestures towards more enjoyable media without attempting anything novel or exciting.
It’s a post-Bluey world and children deserve better from animated dog properties, let alone adults who might be drawn in by Dog Man’s appealing art.
Dog Man is screening in cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.