When I was in elementary school, The Dog Man books became my favorite series and now that it has come back as a movie, I have another way to enjoy a piece of my childhood again.
If you’re not familiar with the books, here is some background. Prior to Dog Man books, Dav Pilkey (author) created the Captain Underpants series and along with the books, the two main characters, George and Harold, enjoyed creating comics.
As a spin-off for Captain Underpants, both main characters “created” the Dog Man series. Since George and Harold are in 4th grade, they let their imaginations run wild while coming up with the storyline of Dog Man: presenting Cop Knight (Peter Hastings) and his buddy, George (yes, that’s Dog Man’s actual name), they are a powerful duo that work together to catch people that commit crimes.
The villain, Petey the Cat (Pete Davidson), dislikes these two and has previously attempted to get rid of them. One day, Cop Knight and George were called to stop a bomb placed by Petey. Once they arrived, Cop Knight cut the wrong wire and it exploded. They were sent to the hospital; George’s body and Cop Knight’s head weren’t functioning. One of the nurses had the idea of sewing George’s head on Cop Knight’s body, ultimately leading to the creation of Dog Man and the start of his adventures!
For the Dog Man movie, the creators mixed the first, second, and third books of the series. To not spoil much, the second book focuses on the evil fish that creates disaster while the third book focuses on Petey the Cat and his new clone, Li’l Petey (Lucas Hopkins Calderon) and their relationship.
Pilkey chose Peter Hastings to direct “Dog Man” as he had previously directed the movie for “Captain Underpants” and it was successful. While Hastings worked on directing this movie and voicing as Cop Knight, he also became the voice actor for “Dog Man.” The movie also features Lil Rey Howery as “Chief,” Isla Fisher as “Sarah Hatoff,” Stephen Root as “Grampa,” Ricky Gervais as “Flippy,” and Billy Boyd as “Seamus.”
All the voice actors fitted their distinctive characters, but I personally enjoyed Davidson’s, Fisher’s, and Howery’s performances the most. These three actors knew how to manage their characters and voice them the way I expected it.
Pete Davidson is a well-known comedian who has appeared in Saturday Night Live (SNL). He has acted as Mirage from “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” and voiced Jerry in “Angry Birds 2”. While sitting at the movie theaters and hearing his character Petey talk, I realized that Davidson did a great job at portraying a character that’s always angry and whenever Petey became mischievous, Davidson added a humorous tone to his character.
Isla Fisher is an Australian actress that had roles in “Confessions of a Shopaholic”, “Wedding Crashers” as well as voiced Tooth Fairy from “Rise of the Guardians” and Beans from “Rango”, If you compare Fisher and Sarah, they have a similar appearance which is why I say it fits her completely. Fisher also knew how to change her character’s tone from serious to gentle to appear as a professional reporter but become a compassionate friend for Dog Man.
My favorite one has been Lil Rey Howery. He is also a comedian and actor that has acted in the popular horror movie “Get Out” but also participated in the sitcom “The Carmichael Show”. Howery did a phenomenal job by capturing this moody boss, Chief, that often yells at Dog Man for his dog-like behaviors and sometimes because he’s nervous that he will get in trouble by the Mayor. At the same time, he also portrays the cheerful side of him when things go his way but also the pitiful side when Chief sees Dog Man depressed at times.
As for the movie itself, I value that the producers maintained the same animated style from the book onto the movie. There were a few small changes, but it didn’t have an impact on the storyline or relationship with the characters. As I’ve read the books, I enjoy the interactive pages with the reader because it keeps you engaged with the book and you get a quick laugh from it. Similar to the movie, there is a lot of action throughout the movie and I love how the whole movie has its characters moving from one place to another because there were funny scenes in between so it was impossible to stop laughing.
Their color choices for the movie were very vivid but also dark for the sad moments. I could easily separate the bright colors when joyful or action took place. At the same time, I noticed that whenever moments became tragic, these colors would turn into a dark blue and black to represent that sadness that the characters, especially Dog Man, were feeling. The balancing of colors was one of my favorite details of the movie.
Overall, the movie itself was fun and bright but it had an unexpected, mini-surprise ending that I wished was different. For a movie that’s based on a kid-friendly book, the ending makes sense, but I would have preferred something different.
Whether you have read the books or not, definitely give it a watch, it contains a lot of funny and entertaining moments. I enjoyed how the movie was very engaging which is why I rate it a 9.5/10.
