Review: DC League of Super-Pets (2022)

DC League of Super-Pets

Rating

Director

Jared Stern, Sam J. Levine

Screenplay

Jared Stern, John Whittington

Length

1h 45m

Starring

Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Kate McKinnon, John Krasinski, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, Diego Luna, Marc Maron, Keanu Reeves, Thomas Middleditch, Ben Schwartz, Olivia Wilde, Maya Erskine, Yvette Nicole Brown, Jameela Jamil, Jmaine Clement, John Early, Dascha Polanco, Daveed Diggs, Alfred Molina, Lena Headey, Keith David

MPAA Rating

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Review

Animated films don’t always have to be bright and cheery, but for DC and Warner Bros., it’s a fresh direction. DC League of Super-Pets is the lightest of the DC films, outside of the Lego movies, since the 1980s.

While Marvel comics has successfully defined itself as a broadly appealing work of pop excess, DC has been mired in a universe that is often excessively, and unnecessarily, dark and gritty. Before the announcement of the new direction for Warner’s DC banner, DC League of Super-Pets showcased the kind of path the studio hopes to travel. In this film, we meet Superman’s dog Krypto (voice of Dwayne Johnson), a.k.a. Superdog. Having escaped the destruction of Superman’s homeworld along with the infant Kal’El, he has grown up alongside his superhero companion, benefiting from the same sun-powered powerset his companion uses.

After a dastardly plan by Lex Luthor fails spectacularly, a hairless guinea pig (Kate McKinnon) at a local animal shelter named Lulu enacts her plan to use a small sliver of orange Kryptonite to give her powers of telekinesis. The shard also gives powers to other animals in the shelter including Ace (Kevin Hart), a boxer, who gains the powers of super strength and invulnerability; PB (Vanessa Bayer), a pot-bellied pig, who becomes able to change her size both to grow larger and smaller than she is; Merton (Natasha Lyonne), a red-eared slider tortoise, who can travel at the speed of light; and Chip (Diego Luna), a red squirrel, who gains the power to shoot electric blasts from his body. Lulu easily captures the humanoid members of the Justice League forcing Krypto to band together with the assorted other animals with new superpowers to take her down. First they must learn how to control them, which requires each to come to terms with their psychological hang-ups and overcome them.

Screenwriters Jared Stern and John Whittington give the superpowered pets a healthy dose of neuroses that make their exploits humorous yet topical. It’s a difficult balance to give characters challenging negative mental traits and not make them come off as stereotypical or harmful, but Stern and Whittington succeeded. If Stern and Sam J. Levine had directed the film a little more tightly and less broadly, pulling in too many elements to keep track of, it would have breezed by rather than felt at times like it was plodding along.

DC League of Super-Pets has a lot of fun humor and will easily appeal to young children, but the plot itself is rudimentary and the animation is smooth, yet underwhelming. Johnson and Hart are mediocre vocal artists, but the rest of the cast does incredibly well. McKinnon’s sinister portrayal is self-aware and acerbic, a nice contrast to the mediocrity of the two ostensible leads. Bayer, Lyonne, and Luna also deliver excellent performances.

Whether or not this merits a sequel depends on whether Warner Bros. wants to try to find a way forward for these powerful pets. DC League of Super-Pets is just exciting enough that it wouldn’t be surprising. It lacks creativity, but when has that ever stopped a studio from making more of something? Ultimately, it’s a positive direction for the studio and I see little reason they wouldn’t or shouldn’t want to keep going even if it doesn’t have the universal appeal of its live-action counterparts.