Spoiler Warning: This review contains spoilers for the “Dog Man” movie. 

“Dog Man” successfully recaptured the original graphic novel vibe and style that felt satisfying to watch on the big screen. It’s unapologetic, and it’s by far one of the most rapid-paced movies I’ve ever watched. 

The soundtrack is absolutely stellar, the animation was surprisingly excellent: I loved the incorporation of a brassy sound font, and it’s on show in a good section of places here plus they got a handful of montages for dog man just doing his thing every now, and again it is really high quality which is something I didn’t expect.

Even though it’s not exactly a masterful work like “The Wild Robot,” “Dog Man” brings a fun, quirky and refreshing cartoon vibe that’s perfect for its target audience. In the end, it covers everything it really needs to, with its reference material being the original graphic novel series. The stylistic choice of showcasing title cards and then scratching them in the background here gave a nice graphic vibe. There are all sorts of details combined with little transitional smear frames; it just brilliantly all comes together in a way that’s simplistic and kind of works with the original art style the book’s based off of.

However, the speed of “Dog Man” left me confused in some scenes. It felt very unfocused once characters like Li’l Petey and Flippy the Fish were introduced, switching between plotlines every few minutes. The tone of “Dog Man” also felt off in scenes where it should have been easily conveyed. One of the worst scenes in this movie was meant to be an emotionally strong moment. Dog Man is lying down on the floor, fatigued about the situation he’s in with a journalist talking alongside him who also lies down, trying to encourage him. Yet the whole time that scene is happening, there’s a cameraman behind them watching who unfittingly starts breaking down into tears over the lines as if they were meant to be the most impactful moment of the movie. The cameraman is lying down in the fetal position, sucking his thumb as if the characters had some profound emotional enlightenment. I think they actively tried to create an emotional response for some of the moments in “Dog Man” and it just didn’t work. 

But where this movie really shines is in the jokes and the gags. Holy smokes, there were so many jokes per minute. I love the gag of all these buildings having different giant props for their marketing that then get used in a giant mecha building fight. Later there’s one with a giant pair of boots that, of course, one just steps in and starts walking along with. It’s sort of a classic, but it’s nice to see it actually done as a recurring gag that then comes together to build something later. The fast-paced nature of the movie combined with the never-ending humor really kept my attention in a not forceful way. The vibe of “Dog Man” showcased good writing and good gags, just a lot per second. There were some shots as well that were way crazy speedy where I couldn’t really tell what was going on: there’s a shot of Li’l Petey opening a door and greeting a character. I swear it’s like only a fourth of a second long.

“Dog Man” is full of a style that masters most of the things it wants to do, but a little bit off when it comes to getting any semblance of emotional beats and weight out. It’s very easy to lose some of the details with how fast and chaotic the movie is, but I still enjoyed “Dog Man” nonetheless. 

On this blog, members of the Carmel High School chapter of the Quill and Scroll International Honorary Society for High School Journalists (and the occasional guest writer) produce curations of all facets of popular culture, from TV shows to music to novels to technology. We hope our readers always leave with something new to muse over. Click here to read more from MUSE.