Dog Man 2025 Movie Review Trailer

 In the animated children's film Dog Man, a guy's head is replaced by the head of his faithful dog, a sometimes absurdly funny film that nonetheless struggles to fill its 89-minute running time.

Based on a popular graphic novel series I'd never heard of, Dog Man leans heavily on its ridiculous, on-the-nose brand of humor to offset a throw-your-spaghetti-at-the-wall story that somehow manages to stick and not stick at the same time.

Director: Peter Hastings
Writers: Peter Hastings, Dav Pilkey
Stars: Pete Davidson, Poppy Liu, Lil Rel Howery

Doug is arrested dressed as Marilyn Monroe while trying to flee the scene of a gang war massacre with his beloved babies, and Dr. Evelyn Decker (Jojo T. Gibbs) must solve the riddle of the fluid, adaptable Dog Man through her baroque narration of his life.

Doug is polite, well-mannered, and so well-versed in the Bard that his story is Shakespearean. Is he Viola, Richard II, Falstaff, or Iago? Is he Hamlet or Juliet? Avenging angel or demon from the bowels of hell? Perhaps he is the three witches from Macbeth? The only thing that is certain is that he weaves constant illusions to avoid being discovered. That, and that he regards humanity as a plague because they believe they have transcended their animal instincts. “The weak die in the wild. But they survive in humanity. For a time. God always finds his own.”

A strange coming-of-age novel, DogMan chronicles Doug’s life as an institutionalized boy who falls in love with his guidance counselor and drama teacher Salma Bailey (Grace Palma), who guides the broken boy through the whirlwind of fantasy he first experienced reading his mother’s hidden “women’s magazines.” Through Salma, he becomes wheelchair bound with the help of Richard Burbage, Will Kemp, and Margaret Hughes. 

Makeup and fantasy transport him out of his isolation. His peers, who once bullied him, see him and admire him, but not for being himself, but for being someone else. Eventually, Salma heads off to Broadway leaving behind a heartbroken child who will eventually find his way back to those he cannot abandon, and who will not abandon him, his dogs.

Doug’s journey through the callousness of reality is mirrored in the stray dogs he cares for. He is homeless, they are homeless. He does not train his children to do tricks, they simply understand what he wants. Instead, he trains himself to perform. Unable to find a job despite having a degree, Doug locks himself away in an abandoned high school with his ever-expanding furry family and by chance becomes a drag performer doing dizzying versions of Édith Piaf (one extraordinary scene) and Marlene Dietrich in “Lili Marlene” mode. With the support of the community of Annie Lennoxes, Madonnas and Chers, Douglas finds liberation behind the illusion. He also has a successful side job in high-end jewelry heists carried out by his crew. None of this is about money, he just needs enough to keep his family fed.

Insurance investigators and Latino gangsters try to take down Doug and meet a gruesome end. It’s Willard without the horror, or Doctor Dolittle as Duela Dent. Gruesome, raw and elegantly captured, the essence of Besson’s cinema du look enhances the choreographed violence. Fetishistic in extremis, but also peculiarly sexless.

There is the law of God and the law of the dog; Douglas is adept at both. God sent him dogs as a panacea to ease his suffering. “Dogs have only one flaw, they love humans.” One suspects that Besson decided to make the entire film in English and shoot it in “America” because chien spelled backwards means nothing.

Doug’s confession to Evelyn is meant to prove his existence before he is erased and to ease his pain. A frazzled single mother with a violent father and an equally violent ex-husband, she can't get away from her young son; Evelyn needs protection too. So the man behind a thousand curtains comes out into the open to send her an angel before she meets her fate.

DogMan should be, in some ways, entertaining. It's darkly funny, but Besson takes too much pleasure in torturing the audience through Doug's misfortunes. The philosophical and ethical discussions between Doug and Evelyn are exhaustingly heavy on exposition. Besson shows and tells too much, never quite getting the balance right. For example, we see Christopher Denham's sweaty, corrupt insurance adjuster stalking Doug thinking he's captured the femme fatale; but Doug has already told Evelyn (and demonstrated in flashbacks) his knack for manipulation and dog-on-man warfare. We know exactly what's coming.

Watch Dog Man 2025 Movie Trailer