The animated family comedy “DC League of Super-Pets” starts from what can only be described as a “safe, why not” premise: Superman now has a Labrador retriever named Krypto the Super-Dog, voiced by Dwayne Johnson, who fights the crime and has special powers. The film combines the conventions of a comic book blockbuster with the tropes of a talking animal movie, making it something like “Justice League” meets “Shrek” – big, loud and full of explosive action but with an irreverent and jocular tone. The director, Jared Stern, was a writer for “The Lego Batman Movie” (2017). Like that film, this one spends a lot of time gently poking fun at its superhero source material. When Lulu (voiced by Kate McKinnon), the story’s evil guinea pig and megalomaniac villain, captures Clark Kent (John Krasinski), she ridicules her alter ego’s sloppy disguise: “A mustache, maybe, but no glasses!”
The movie seems clearly aimed at young kids who revere superheroes and love animals. He’s at his greatest success when he simply lets his leads, Krypto and another dog named Ace (Kevin Hart), put a spin on the basic bowwow stuff – like in an early scene involving a flying fetch game. through the city. More disconcerting are the film’s constant efforts to appease the adults in the audience. What are kids supposed to do with references to ‘The Great British Bake Off’ in a running gag? And what could they find amusing in a prolonged and monotonous nod to “The Warriors” (1979)? This brand of arch-baseball riffs is a bane of modern family movies, present in nearly every animated film with an all-star cast. But it’s particularly gritty delivered by Johnson and Hart, who, despite having shown vocal talent in the past, deliver two of the most uninspired vocal performances in recent memory.
DC League of Super Pets
Rated PG. Duration: 1h46. In theaters.