Dog Man (2025) review

Severely injured by a bomb planted by evil mastermind Petey (voiced by Pete Davidson), police officer Knight and his pooch companion Greg are surgically smooshed together into super crime-stopper Dog Man (Hastings) and determined to get even, but when Petey purchases a cloning machine and creates kitten Li'l Petey (Lucas Hopkins Calderon), he's disappointed his "offspring" is really polite and not remotely malevolent.  It does service to children's author Dav Pilkey's graphic novel (which is a spin-off of his popular Captain Underpants books) with its fanciful design, superb voice acting (Lil Rel Howery is a highlight as Dog Man's boss) and unstoppable kinetic energy, which should keep the kiddos with ADHD consistently enraptured ... although it doesn't quite know how to let up and relax, so once actual buildings come to life in an anime-inspired third act, it adds too much syrup to the already-soaked pancakes.  There's also a nice little message about how some people can be "redeemed" and others cannot - Petey partners with Dog Man to save his "son," resurrected robotic fish Flippy (Ricky Gervais) expresses remorse for his villainy ... yet Petey's cantankerous pop (Stephen Root) remains a thieving low-life.