The latest hero to leap off the comic book page may not have been around as long as Superman and Batman, but their animated antics were one of the highlights of the year. Sit, stay, and go fetch the remote: it's time to watch Dog Man.
If you have kids, you may already know this dogged detective from the series of bestselling comics by Dav Pilkey.
It's meant to be a child's vision of a cop show, complete with car chases and a shrieking boss, and it's frenetic, anarchic and absurd. But amid the childlike art and silly jokes, the comics sneak in a few emotional twists.
And like so many great animated movies from Toy Story to Luca, the Dog Man film also blends wacky humour with an emotional roller coaster.
The film opens in all-action style as the city's best cop tries to defuse a bomb. Unfortunately he and his dog are blown up, with just the cop's body and dog's head left undamaged.
Surgeons do the obvious thing and combine the surviving body parts to create: Dog Man! And so, the dog-headed police officer goes back on the beat, taking down criminals in between chasing tennis balls.
Our canine cop has two nemeses: his own broken heart, and a villainous orange cat named Petey (voiced by Pete Davidson).
Petey is a super-criminal who builds giant robots and teams up with a super-intelligent fish called Flippy so he can take over the world, but he's got something of broken heat himself. And when he clones himself, he faces not just the forces of the law, but the emotional weight of parenthood.
So yes, this is a film where buildings come to life and go on rampages, with a relentless stream of silly jokes and surreal sight gags. And it's also a film where the hero and villain grapple with genuinely heartfelt struggles.
The whole movie is something of a tonal balancing act between quickfire gags and a plot that needs to hold the attention for the length of a full movie.
The animation does a great job of striking the right balance, achieving the difficult job of expanding the comic's childlike scribblings to the big screen without losing the original playfulness.
The saturated primary colours pop with just enough depth and shading to make it visually interesting, while retaining the cartoony feel that's essential to this surreal world.
And, crucially, Dog Man clocks in at a tight 89 minutes, so the animated absurdity doesn't overstay its welcome. Dog Man is available to stream on Now TV in the UK, or rent and buy on most online stores.
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