The Delightful Animated Comedy Dog Man is ADHD in Cinematic Form in the Best Possible Way

Dog Man is a very good boy in this spirited adaptation of Dav Pilkey's bestselling book series

Every week, I allow this newsletter’s paid subscribers to choose which new, theatrically released movie I am professionally and morally obligated to see.

I HAVE to see that movie. It’s a necessity. But I can also watch movies that didn’t win the poll because, to be brutally honest, I FUCKING LOVE MOVIES.

They’re the best! I love the shit out of cinema as an art form. I would go so far as to call myself something of a “film fan.” It goes beyond that. I’ve even refer to myself as a “movie buff.”

I love going to the movies alone and with my ten-year-old son, Declan. This weekend, I got to do both, and it felt great.

While it is true that choosing to watch and write up two films rather than one involves twice the work, it also involves twice the pleasure and twice the reward.

Besides, as of now, I have one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven subscribers. If I get three more, I will officially have two thousand subscribers. I decided to celebrate that milestone by writing about one new movie for every thousand subscribers.

I wrote up Companion earlier this week. I’m glad I did! I love horror movies! I love robots! I love horror movies about robots! It was excellent! I related to it deeply because, like many movies or shows about robots, it explored what makes us human and what makes the neurodiverse different from the neurotypical.

Companion spoke to the autistic side of me that views humanity with suspicion. I can’t help it: people make me nervous. Sometimes, I think society would be better off without them.

Dog Man, meanwhile, is the product of Dav Pilkey, a writer with ADHD. It prominently features a robot named 80-HD and, in universe, is the product of two excitable boys who probably have ADHD.

That’s because Dog Man isn’t just inspired by Pilkey’s ADHD or informed by it: Dog Man is pretty much ADHD in cinematic form. That’s one of the many things I love about it.

ADHD dictates the movie’s mad, manic, galloping rhythms. It is a film with an attention deficit and case of hyperactivity that serves it well.

Dog Man is chockablock with comic invention in part because, like many ADHD people, it has a terrible memory, particularly short-term, and consequently seems to have forgotten everything except what is happening at that very moment.

This loving CGI adaptation of Dav Pilkey’s beloved creation chronicles the tragic, absurd travails of Officer Knight, a dedicated but relatively stupid human police officer, and his loyal dog sidekick Greg.

When an explosion blows up Officer Knight’s head and Greg’s body, scientists of the “mad” variety save both of their lives by turning them into a miraculous mash-up/mutation with the head of a dog and the body of a policeman.

This is spectacularly silly stuff with a sad undercurrent. Officer Knight had a life—a girlfriend, a house, and a career. Then everything went kablooie, and now he’s a Cronenbergian mutated monstrosity—but for kids!

Dog Man is a dedicated police officer but also unmistakably, a dog, with everything that entails. A lot of the kooky humor of the Dog Man books comes from the incongruity of Dog Man being anthropomorphic and human in many ways but also a dog. It doesn’t matter that Dog Man is the PG, canine version of Robocop; if you throw a ball in his presence, particularly a tennis ball, he is going to chase it and bring it back to you because that’s what dogs do, and Dog Man is half man but all dog.

That’s much of what makes him so lovable. Dogs are inherently sympathetic. That’s why we, as a nation, care about them much more than human beings.

Dog Man’s arch-nemesis is Petey, the world’s most evil cat. The ubiquitous Pete Davidson voices Petey. It feels like Davidson is involved with about a quarter of the movies I see with my son.

Davidson is not the first name that would spring to mind when casting a mad scientist cat with a grudge against humanity and deep underlying sadness. Charles Grodin or Kelsey Grammer would seem like better, more natural picks, but Davidson does a fine job with the role.

In his mad quest for power, Petey creates a clone of himself. He naturally assumed that his clone would be a perfect double of himself. Instead, his clone is the most adorable, kind-hearted little guy in Christendom.

Li’l Petey is such a force for good in the universe that he changes Petey’s life in a profound and positive way. Li’l Petey gets under Petey’s skin. Petey thinks he does not need his clone and would be better off without him. He comes to understand that that is not true.

Li’l Petey brings out the best in Petey. He stops behaving in a super-villainous manner and starts to treat Li’l Petey like his son.

Petey goes from being the bad guy to being an anti-hero to being an unlikely hero when he teams up with Dog Man—who has a special relationship of his own with Li’l Petey—and Li’l Petey to bring down an insane undead fish voiced by Ricky Gervais.

I’d prefer never to be exposed to Ricky Gervais in any form but he’s smartly cast here as someone you are supposed to revile.

I was going to give Dog Man four and a quarter stars for making me laugh and touching me emotionally. I had to bump the rating up to four and a half stars because I teared up at the emotional softening of a CGI cat voiced by Pete Davidson.

Dog Man made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me feel less alone in my ADHD. It’s a world of fun but also surprisingly moving.

Four and a half stars out of Five