If you’ve ever wanted to find a beginner-style superhero movie to ease your young children into the genre, the animated “DC League of Super-Pets” has got you covered.

What better way to get children interested in superheroes than by making a cartoon about their pets? “League of Super-Pets” works quite well as both a kids movie and one for pet lovers, though it doesn’t have much beyond those two factors to praise. Everything else about “League of Super-Pets” is pretty simple and by-the-numbers.

Fortunately, children and pet lovers do make for a pretty big audience.

When Superman and the rest of the Justice League are taken prisoner by a diabolical new villain, it’s up to his dog, Krypto, to come to the rescue. But Krypto the Superdog can’t do it alone, so he teams up with a rescue shelter full of newly powered and very friendly animals, the Super-Pets.

“League of Super-Pets” is a very simple, very pleasant animated film that fits neatly into the talking animal genre. It just so happens that these talking animals are connected to the likes of Superman, Batman and the rest of the Justice League. And they’re voiced by the likes of Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Kate McKinnon. So this movie definitely has a strong pedigree.

The animation is bright and colorful, the action is full of big superheroics and the life lessons are just as strong. “League of Super-Pets” has pretty much everything you could want from an entertaining kids film.

But whether or not it has anything beyond that will depend on your personal taste. Don’t have kids and don’t have pets? There’s not much to recommend about this movie. The jokes are tame and there’s only a slight hint of edge to the humor. The superhero stuff is also pretty sanitized, with the characters being about as basic as lunchbox art.

There’s a lot to love for pet owners. The main plots of the movie are all about pet ownership and the relationships between people and their animals, so expect a few heart strings to be tugged if you’ve got your own fur babies in your life.

“DC League of Super-Pets” knows its audience and centers on them in particular. But in terms of modern animated movies, don’t go in expecting something as universally enjoyable as a Disney movie, or something as smartly subversive as a LEGO movie.

For more, listen to this week's Sentinel Cinema podcast at:  https://romesentinel.com/stories/dc-league-of-super-pets,139001