Fixed (dir. Genndy Tartakovsky)

by Jack Martin | Aug 13, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 86 mins

UK Distributor: Netflix

UK Release Date: 13 August 2025

WHO’S IN FIXED?

Adam DeVine, Idris Elba, Kathryn Hahn, Fred Armisen, Bobby Moynihan, Beck Bennett, River Gallo, Michelle Buteau, Aaron LaPlante, Grey DeLisle, Daran Norris, Sean Chiplock

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Genndy Tartakovsky (director, writer), Jon Vitti (writer), Michelle Murdocca and Ashley Postlewaite (producers), Tyler Bates and Joanne Higginbottom (composers), Mark Yeager (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A dog (DeVine) sets out to have one last night of fun before he gets neutered…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON FIXED?

Genndy Tartakovsky may not be as universally known as fellow animation legends like Walt Disney, Chuck Jones, Hayao Miyazaki et al, but his stylish work on such things as Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack and the Hotel Transylvania movies have earned him a good deal of respect among cartoon admirers. Yet, it’s hard to imagine his contemporaries – let alone the man himself – putting as much thought and energy into a movie that opens with the image of a dog thrusting its pendulous testicles back and forth onto an elderly woman’s leg (among many other things), its asterisk-shaped anus constantly flashing at the camera every time it swings its hind legs.

If watching a movie that is pretty much just staring at dog’s buttholes for roughly eighty minutes straight, Fixed should give you whatever it is you’re hoping for. But anyone else expecting something that is more along the lines of Tartakovsky’s much funnier and more provocative work, may just find themselves confused that something like this comes from the same mind as Samurai Jack.

Tartakovsky’s film, which he both directs and co-writes (with Simpsons veteran Jon Vitti), is about an endlessly horny dog named Bull (voiced by Adam DeVine) who prides himself on his massive dangling balls that he feels defines him, as well as his attraction to Honey (Kathryn Hahn), the Afghan Hound show dog who lives next door. However, his world comes crashing down when he learns that his human owners plan to get him neutered, so Bull – far from willing to part with his testicles – decides to run away with his pack of canine friends, including boxer Rocco (Idris Elba), dachshund Fetch (Fred Armisen) and beagle Lucky (Bobby Moynihan), in tow. The pack decides to give Bull one final night of liberation before having his dog-hood removed, one that involves brutally chasing after squirrels, crashing show dog competitions, and visiting a brothel that can only be described as a zoophile’s wet dream.

It really is the kind of film that opts for very low-brow humour over anything else, whether it’s gags about dogs eating faecal matter or peeing in unison like they’re the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas or silly dog-related puns (example dialogue: “This is a shitshow” “Actually, I’m a Shih Tzu”). The problem is that little of it actually works, as Tartakovsky and Vitti’s script can’t seem to tell the difference between what is funny and what is simply just gross, while inserting moments of sudden shock humour that only gets a laugh due to the extremity of what is being shown, such as a squirrel being ripped to bloody pieces in front of a busy restaurant or a much later instance of male-on-male action, rather than the very thing itself. Unlike a lot of his more universal work, Tartakovsky lets perhaps a bit too loose with his first truly adult-centric work, offering gags that would have felt right at home in a mid-2000s Judd Apatow or Farrelly Brothers comedy, but more often than not without the timing or even the nuance.

The 2D animation certainly has Tartakovsky’s thumbprints all over it, to where you can even see the brushstrokes on the edges of certain character designs, and it’s often very well rendered with its stylish backgrounds and the vaguely humorous expressions on these dogs’ faces, but above all, it’s just cool seeing this increasingly rare kind of animation being used for features nowadays. There is, however, a noticeable lack of bounciness here compared to the animator’s previous works. Take something like Hotel Transylvania, which was able to deliver some incredibly fast-paced visual and physical gags without detracting from its overall comedy (though that one has a slight advantage for using more regular CG animation that enables such fast movements more than something hand-drawn), whereas in Fixed the characters are a bit more stiff, and while they are certainly expressive within a style that’s closer to Ren & Stimpy than Dexter’s Laboratory, Tartakovsky can’t quite utilise their cartoon identity nearly as much. It almost feels like the animation itself is on a dog lead, trying to break free but never quite managing to escape its restraints.

While the film itself isn’t very good, it’s hard not to see what Tartakovsky is aiming for here. In its own somewhat twisted way, Fixed does try to have a few heartfelt moments among these characters, some of whom share rather sweet chemistry with one another, while others end up pursuing interests that touchingly aren’t shamed or mocked by others (which would absolutely be the case were this made ten or twenty years ago). The characters themselves, as written in the script, are decent and written with good enough intentions, though if anything it’s the voice acting that can make them a bit intolerable, particularly Adam DeVine who is doing a very irritating Jack Black impression throughout the whole thing, to where you start to wonder if the part was actually written for Black in mind except they couldn’t get him – apparently, A Minecraft Movie was the more dignified offer – and they had to settle for a soundalike instead.

Your best bet when it comes to raunchy and foul-mouthed talking dog movies is Strays, which while itself not an especially great movie at least was silly enough to land a few laughs (in fact, this movie has some near-identical set pieces with pretty much the same type of jokes). Either way, it’s more than you’ll likely get from Fixed, a film that despite Tartakovsky’s best efforts is something of a dog’s dinner.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Fixed is a raunchy cartoon comedy that, despite Genndy Tartakovsky’s stylish if stilted animation and a decent enough heart, sticks with easy low-brow shock humour that is more gross than it is funny, and irritating voice acting that make it a far cry from the animator’s more regarded past work.