For months, I have been seeing trailers for Dog Man nearly every time I went to the theater.  That should not be surprising, but it was my reaction I am noting.  I would see it and sigh, hoping that something else would be playing the weekend of its release.  That weekend is here, and unfortunately the only other new arrival is Companion.  There were fewer previews for this one, yet it also has features I hoped to avoid based on what I saw.  In short, it is a movie about a sex robot that murders its owner.  If you have read other reviews penned by yours truly, you will know there are two subject matters in that last sentence that I typically do not wish to see.  There are some Catholics that can handle such things, but I am not one of them.  Whatever it is that it contains, it was more than I wanted to put before my eyes, so I chose Dog Man.

In the beginning, Dog Man is Greg (voiced by Peter Hastings) the dog and Officer Knight (voiced by Peter Hastings), a policeman and pet duo who motors about the Ohkay City in his squad car chasing Petey (voiced by Pete Davidson), a villainous cat.  That may be one of the strangest sentences I have ever written, but that is this film for you.  Having said that, it would probably not surprise you to learn that Greg is the smart one.  That is not me being flippant, but rather what the movie tells you.  After a cartoonish chase (and I realize the irony of that statement), Petey leaves a bomb on the roof of a building designed to destroy the crime fighting pair.  Officer Knight ignores Greg pointing to the correct wire to cut, snipping the wrong one and having the device detonate in their faces.  Neither of them die, and the so-called doctors decide that the two are too good together to let them pass into retirement.  That is putting it in an intelligent.  For the staff, it is as simple as: why not put the dog’s head on the cop’s body.  Hence, you get the eponymous character.  Chief (voiced by Lil Rey Howery) is eager to get his supposedly best officer back on the hunt for Petey, and their proceeds a montage of Dog Man capturing Petey, only to have the feline easily break out of cat jail and start the whole process over again.  The perpetually angry Mayor (voiced by Cheri Oteri) becomes annoyed with the constant carousel of incarceration and escape.  This forces Chief to put Dog Man on other duty, much to the pooch’s sorrow.  As for Petey, he finds that he has run out of canine related machines with which to terrorize Dog Man, so he tries to come up with other ideas.  His first is to clone himself, but the result is Li’l Petey (voiced by Lucas Hopkins Calderon), an adorable kitten with nothing but goodness in his heart.  I almost had a moment of Catholic rage when Petey contemplates putting his offspring back into the machine and pushing “undo,” but finds the button is not included.  Just as a reminder, though the Church is against cloning, if a life is created from it, that life should be destroyed.  Petey’s next evil plan is to steal a diabolical fish called Flippy (voiced by Ricky Gervais) that was accidentally killed by Dog Man, who likes rolling around on smelly things.  To get Flippy, Petey must sneak into the precinct, which proves easy as Dog Man is watching the security monitors but is distracted by a number of things Chief shows to the officer to not be distracted by because, you know, comedy.  Petey does a number of things to reprogram Flippy, but needs to bring it to life by throwing it into a factory smokestack that produces life gas . . . or something.  As Petey is flying over the target, he is distracted by Li’l Petey, causing Flippy to fall into the wrong opening.  Find up with the kitten, Petey abandons Li’l Petey on the side of the road to be adopted by someone else.  Once Li’l Petey realizes what has happened, in sadness he goes to the middle of the road to be run over by a car.  Dog Man sees the danger and saves the kitten at the last moment.  They go back to Dog Man’s home, and Li’l Petey latches onto Dog Man as a surrogate parent.  Yet, Petey feels bad for leaving Li’l Petey behind when the older cat finds a short book written by his younger counterpart about how much he loves his Papa.  Thus, using his new robot, Petey takes back Li’l Petey, and Dog Man is once more devastated.  Once back at Petey’s, he explains why he has troubled with kids, which has to do with being left when he was young by Li’l Petey’s Grampa (voiced by Stephen Root).  Seeing this as the source of Petey’s grumpiness, Li’l Petey’s sends the robot to bring Grampa back to Petey.  This proves a mistake as Grampa is just as miserable as ever, which only renews Petey’s anger.  That frustration is directed at Dog Man, and Petey takes a new machine out to fight his archenemy.  Dog Man is triumphant once more, but as he is about to put the handcuffs on Petey, Flippy emerges with an animated building as a bodyguard.  Petey had instilled in Flippy the desire to kill all do-gooders, and the factory is spewing its life gas, creating other living structures to help in this cause.  Seeing the danger, Dog Man and Petey team up to take on Flippy and his large minions.  Full disclosure: I began to drift off to sleep at this moment, but I kept enough track to awaken to a triumphant Dog Man and Petey, a grateful Chief and Mayor, and Dog Man and Petey agreeing to share custody of Li’l Petey . . . I guess.

The kumbaya at the end of Dog Man is predictable, particularly since it is a film aimed at children.  It hits on themes that I can appreciate as a Catholic, but I think it found its ability to have enough material for a feature length film challenging.  Generally speaking, the is about eighty minutes, though the Academy will tell you that forty is acceptable.  The reason I bring this up is because of something I forgot to mention at the start.  Before we get to the main film, there is a short featuring the characters from The Bad Guys (2022) about how they are late for a parole hearing.  For a moment, I thought I had wandered into the wrong theater, something I had have done in other trips to the cinema.  I also know that there is a sequel to this film coming out, so I was suspicious that I made an error.  As it turned out, it was only to pad the runtime, which is barely over an hour and a half combined.  If you take out the end credits, it is considerably less.  All this should add up to a pleasing movie-going experience for yours truly as Dog Man does not waste time.  As referenced before, the decision to create the title character was as simple as, hey, what if we put a dog’s head on a man’s body?!  At the same time, I bemoan the short attention span culture this seems to be an indicator of, catering to the lowest common denominator.  I understand that kids want to be entertained, and appreciate some of the lessons it gives them, but the hyper-stimulation is troubling.

What are some of the lessons to be gleaned from Dog Man from a Catholic perspective?  As touched on in the synopsis, I almost thought I was going to have to have a broader discussion on the pro-life implications of Li’l Petey’s existence.  Luckily, Petey did not follow through on his inclination to murder an infant.  Yet, the kitten is useful to focus on for other reasons, mainly because of his attitude of forgiveness.  He has the simple belief that all people are basically good, something he applies to Petey and Flippy, which brings them around in the end.  This is Christ-like behavior.  Jesus did not found Christianity on the basis of negatively judging others.  Because He was God, He saw to the heart of everyone, and drew to Him some of the last people society would expect to be so close to the Messiah.  There was a tax collector and a woman caught in adultery, and often those who approached Him, like Peter, did so fully admitting that they are sinners.  Because you and me are wanted by God, no matter what we have done, it is why, when we turn our hearts to Him that is love, we can be transformed by it.  That love is embodied by Li’l Petey.  What is remarkable, when Li’l Petey is feeling down, it is Petey that cheers the kitten up by reminding the young one of the stars in the sky, a clear indication of the transformation Petey has undergone along these lines.

If you are an adult watching Dog Man, I doubt you will be transformed.  It is bonkers, but it is a mercifully short crazy.  As I have indicated, though, it is not the kind of thing I would want to subject my children to because of playing on damaging cultural tropes for children.  Still, at least it was not Companion.