Dog Man opens with an animated short about the Bad Guys, a quick little vignette to touch base with the anthropomorphic animal antiheroes. I’m glad that movie’s getting a sequel later this year. The first movie turned out to be a pleasant surprise and I’m interested to see where they go with a sequel.

But I’m still bitter the same courtesy wasn’t afforded to Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie.

Sure, the voice cast could’ve been stronger. Even so, Captain Underpants got screwed over by a bad release window and corporate drama. I don’t know the first thing about the books, but I was deeply impressed with the movie’s creativity, full-throated commitment, free-wheeling style, and defiantly stupid sense of gleefully lowbrow humor. That movie deserved so much better than it got.

So here we are with Dog Man, another Dreamworks Animation adaptation of another Dav Pilkey book series. Even better, they brought in writer/director Peter Hastings, fresh off the Netflix animated TV adaptation of Captain Underpants. (No, that’s not the same as the theatrical sequel the first movie deserved, dammit!)

I had high hopes for this one. So it isn’t saying much that I came away disappointed.

We lay our scene in Ohkay City, where we meet Officer Knight and his canine companion Greg (both voiced by writer/director Hastings). The two police officers complement each other nicely because Knight is rock-stupid and a physical paragon, while the super-intelligent Greg is… well, he’s a dog.

The two are sent chasing after Petey (Pete Davidson), an anthropomorphic cat who’s also a mad scientist bent on world domination. Long story short, Knight and Greg get blown up by Petey, such that Knight’s head is pretty much blown off while Greg has basically lost his body. At this point, the medical geniuses at the local hospital get the bright idea of putting the dog’s head on the cop’s body. Thus we have Dog Man, a “supa cop” out to make the city a better place by being the happiest, most comforting, most protective dog that man’s best friend ever was.

To start with the positives, the film delivers more of the same style of comedy I came to love and expect from Captain Underpants. This whole movie is a gag a minute, and every gag comes with a complimentary lampshade. It’s all so gleefully juvenile and endlessly creative and self-aware, with no regard for anything like common sense or real-world logic. Though there is a noteworthy lack of toilet humor, which is certainly appreciated.

I want to stress emphatically that this movie is funny as hell. I was laughing early and often. The comedy in this film is amazing. Which is just as well, because the plot and themes are outright busted.

See, the bulk of the plot doesn’t actually concern Dog Man. The actual plot gets started when Petey orders a cloning machine off of CraigsList (freaking seriously) and clones himself. Thus we have Li’l Petey (newcomer Lucas Hopkins Calderon), a kitten clone of Petey, who somehow turns out to be really sweet and kind-hearted in open defiance of his cynically evil progenitor.

The upshot is that most of the movie is focused on Petey reconsidering his evil ways in the process of bonding with his clone. To repeat, it’s the villain who gets a redemptive arc, and that’s the primary driving force of the plot. There is so much wrong with this.

Granted, this is all in the service of a thematic message about how some people are beyond changing, and some can change for the better. It sends a message that a lot about the world is awful, but there’s a lot to like about it as well, and any one of us can be a reason why it’s less awful.

It’s a sweet message, elegantly delivered with a lot of heart. The problem is that this particular message belongs in a different movie altogether. Seriously, what does any of this have to do with the premise of a “supa cop” that got Frankenstein’d together with a human body and a dog’s head?

Speaking of which, what about our hero? What’s his big development arc? Well… he doesn’t really get one. Dog Man is a preternatural superstar out of the box, catching criminals and winning over public adoration from the instant of his creation. And Petey isn’t much of an obstacle, as we’re quickly treated to an extended montage of Dog Man arresting Petey, only for Petey to break out jail, rinse and repeat about a dozen times in quick succession. Of course it’s fun to watch Dog Man succeed at what he does in his own devilishly comical ways, but the trade-off is that we don’t get to see Dog Man readjust to his inconceivable new circumstances and become good at his job.

And it’s not like the potential for development wasn’t there. We get a brief scene of Dog Man returning to Knight’s old home, only to find that the house has already been sold and his girlfriend skipped town without a word after the bombing. The matter is immediately dropped after Dog Man gets his own doghouse in the next scene. There’s a point when Dog Man is taken off the case due by the short-tempered Mayor (Cheri Oteri), but Dog Man goes through the whole movie chasing after Petey anyway, due to interference from the Chief.

Oh, right. The Chief.

Lil Rey Howery voices Chief, who’s pissed off because Dog Man keeps getting all the great press while Chief and his hard work (citation needed) go unrecognized. Then the Mayor comes in and all of his grievances against Dog Man vanish without a trace. There’s also Sarah Hatoff (Isla Fisher), a local reporter who’s apparently in a romantic arc with Chief, even though they never talk or act or share screen time in any way that suggests romantic attachment.

The point being that this could’ve easily been a movie about a well-intentioned crimefighter thrust into a world that wasn’t ready for him. All the pieces were here for a story about a creation of mad science trying to carve out a place for himself, bringing something new and beautiful into the world that wasn’t there before, in spite of all the small-minded fools who fear becoming obsolete.

That all could’ve been amazing, and a natural fit for the premise of the film. Too bad all those development arcs for our heroes are left to wither on the vine while most of the screen time and character growth are taken up by the villain. And seriously, in this childish movie with this childish sense of humor, who the hell was asking for a villain with nuance or depth? It would’ve made so much more sense to simply let the over-the-top mad scientist villain be a villain.

Unfortunately, Petey’s face-turn means we need another over-the-top villain for the climax. Enter Flippy (Ricky Gervais), a despotic cyborg fish with telekinetic superpowers. No, I don’t have a problem that this villain concept is so bugfuck insane. Nor do I take issue the big evil plan that’s absurdly convoluted to the point of breaking all internal logic. That all fits with the established tone and sense of humor.

My big problem with all of this is that the film never had to go to all these outlandish lengths in setting up a totally different evil supergenius villain when we already had an evil supergenius villain set to go. And on top of all that, Flippy also gets a redemption arc at the end. Seriously, what the hell?

Yes, I had a good time overall sitting through Dog Man, but my amusement came with significant frustration. The protagonist who gets literally and drastically transformed against his will remains more or less a static character, while the over-the-top villains get redemption arcs, all of which shows the filmmakers got their priorities backwards. Couple that with an absurdly contrived plot and themes that don’t fit the movie, and I have to wonder if the filmmakers had any idea what story they were telling.

The filmmakers committed to their own defiantly off-the-wall tone and bonkers sense of humor with juvenile self-referential jokes, but they couldn’t commit to letting the over-the-top villains be over-the-top villains or letting Dog Man be the main character in his own movie. Their own “anything goes” style of comedy unfortunately translated to an “anything goes” mess of a plot. Yes, it’s a hilarious film to sit through, but the end result should’ve been so much better than this.