Reading Time: 3 minutes
If you’ve ever been an elementary schooler, you’ve probably heard of Dog Man. The graphic novel series by Dav Pilkey recently got an animated film adaptation starring, of all people, Pete Davidson.
I did not read the Dog Man books in elementary school, but I got the gist of the story. After an accident, a cop and his dog are sewn together to form the benevolent, dog-headed police officer Dog Man. It’s the kind of origin story that isn’t horror if you don’t think about it too hard.
The trailer for the Dog Man film was met with both skepticism and excitement, but above all, it piqued nostalgia. I mentioned it to some of my classmates and watched them lapse into Proustian reveries of Scholastic Book Fairs.
My childhood Dog Man flashbacks were limited to my being a snob who refused to read the books. I wasn’t sure if the film would be good. The internet was full of parents complaining about how puerile the series was.
Of course, frivolousness and a younger target audience doesn’t disqualify a film from being good. Last year’s Wicked was admittedly silly, but it broke box office records. Transformers One seemed like a movie only kids would enjoy, but it was excellent.
With those films on my mind, I went to watch Dog Man. As promised, it was both occasionally dumb and consistently silly. But it was also surprisingly poignant at times.
The titular chimeric hero is mentally more dog than man, prone to licking people’s faces and chasing squirrels. He’s also a “supa cop” who can ostensibly do kung fu.
But among the inherent ridiculousness of his existence, there’s also sadness. His human component’s girlfriend dumped him, and now he has to move into a dog house.
Pete Davidson voices the similarly named Petey, an evil cat who, unlike Dog Man, can talk. He uses this skill to say things like “So long, suckers!” as he breaks out of jail in an increasingly fast montage. Miraculously, Davidson did a good job in this film. Petey was the most compelling character by far.
As the film progresses, Petey and Dog Man realize they have someone in common: a friendly child clone of Petey named Li’l Petey. Li’l Petey could easily make scenes saccharine, but instead he’s one of the best characters. His existence gives both Dog Man and Petey unexpectedly affecting parenting subplots.
These three characters, a police chief, a news reporter, and a peculiar fish voiced by Ricky Gervais make up the film’s cast. Pete Davidson overcame his past acting gigs to successfully voice a jaded cat figuring out fatherhood, but Ricky Gervais was just… Ricky Gervais. He was OK.
Dog Man has a lot of jokes, and most of them are funny. The author of Dog Man drew from his experiences as a kid with ADHD and dyslexia, leading to phonetic spelling (e.g. “supa cop”) and a robot named 80-HD. There are also references to classic movies that most kids won’t get.
And while the film doesn’t lambast the police force, it doesn’t praise it either. There are undertones of political corruption that, while not fully explored, are definitely there.
It’s also a cool-looking movie. Dog Man has a tactile animation style reminiscent of claymation or Louie Zong’s art. It’s very similar to the style of the original books, with even more bright colors and visual gags. Some textures seem drawn with crayon.
What doesn’t work as well is the plot. Dog Man’s pacing is so fast it’s hard to keep up. Its best moments are when it slows down, which is often when there’s a focus on Li’l Petey. Still, the film suffers from a big dumb fight in the third act, and it can get chaotic. It’s very aware of the attention span of its audience, sometimes to its own detriment.
It’s like an overstuffed sandwich. Unless you can unhinge your jaw, you won’t be able to get every component and still enjoy it. Much like its hero, Dog Man is a Frankenstein’s monster composed of three different books from the original series.
Although Dog Man is flawed, it’s still entertaining, especially if you’re a child. Although I wasn’t part of its target audience, I still enjoyed it.
The dynamic animation, strong emotion, and utter ridiculousness of the premise all combine to make a fun one hour and 34 minutes. The fact that I had no nostalgia for the books and still liked it should tell you all you need to know.
I advise anyone reading this to watch Dog Man. Even if it’s not your bowl of water, Pete Davidson’s decent performance needs to be experienced to be believed. It may be even more surprising than successfully sewing a dog’s head onto a man’s body.
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