Dog Man

Catering first and foremost to children with short attention spans, Dog Man is like a hyperactive cinematic puppy that means well even as its constant barking becomes annoying.

Crude and irreverent yet also charming and warm-hearted, this adaptation of the popular graphic novels from children’s author Dav Pilkey (Captain Underpants) proves an unwieldy expansion of material that’s more amusing in smaller doses.

It’s a rambunctious and spirited origin story that opens with the accident that prompts a valiant police officer and his faithful canine companion to require a desperate surgery fusing the dog’s head on a man’s body.

With surprisingly few complications, the newly minted Dog Man is back on the job, no longer able to speak but still finding new ways to irritate the exasperated local police chief (voiced by Lil Rel Howery).

Dog Man’s nemesis is Petey the Cat (Pete Davidson), a conniving supervillain with plans for world domination that include cloning himself to double his nefarious abilities. But a miscalculation instead creates Lil Petey, a kitten whose desire to bond with adult Petey is not mutual.

As Petey pivots to a new scheme, Lil Petey instead discovers a father figure in Dog Man, becoming an innocent pawn in their rivalry. Of course, it all builds toward an elaborate climactic showdown with the obligatory dose of impending doom and urban destruction.

The computer-generated visuals are delightfully rudimentary yet richly detailed, and the voice cast — minus the nonverbal title character — adds dimension in the translation from page to screen.

The screenplay by director Peter Hastings (The Country Bears) captures the freewheeling mischief of the source material. Anything goes in this unique world, from anthropomorphic buildings to devious cyborg fish to a sidekick robot that resembles an oversized fishing bobber.

The film thrives on that manic energy. However. without much narrative depth to sustain the mayhem, the result mostly resorts to filling every frame with a rapid-fire barrage of sight gags and quirky non sequiturs without much regard for coherence or character development.

Perhaps that’s beside the point, but the underlying message of courage, coexistence, and acceptance among outsiders gets lost in the shuffle.

It’s thrilling in spots and unexpectedly poignant in others, although at feature length, Dog Man winds up more exhausting than endearing.

Rated PG, 89 minutes.