Digging into ‘Dog Man’

I think there’s always been a bit of stigma around kids’ movies, and it’s not entirely unfounded; there’s a good amount of them that are colorful, overwhelming nonsense, that are just used to keep their attention. For some kids’ movies, there’s no substance to any of it, and they’re so mindless that older people can’t stand to watch them.

That being said, Dog Man wasn’t that kind of movie by a long shot. It was still a kids’ movie, but not in the soulless way that people have come to associate with them – it was a crazy time, but it was a fun one.

If you missed out as a kid, “Dog Man” was originally a collection of graphic novels written by Dav Pilkey, the same author who wrote “The Adventures of Captain Underpants”.  I remember reading both of these books when I was younger, and even so many years later I look back fondly on them, so maybe I’m a bit biased.

Either way, this is my thoughts about the movie, Dog Man. I’m also going to be talking a little bit about the books, and how the movie managed to capture the feeling of reading them.

Before I dive in, I wanted to give a brief rundown of the most important characters in both the books and movie. You can read a little about them below!

Dog Man, as the title suggests, follows the main character, and it covers events from the first book, as well as miscellaneous moments from the other ones. The movie begins before Dog Man was created, when he was Officer Knight and the dog Greg. It shows a montage of their duo as crime-fighters, before jumping right to the faithful day that they both got caught in an explosion, due to Officer Knight failing to properly disarm the bomb.

The movie speeds through a lot initially, not only with Dog Man becoming who he is now, but also the introduction of the Chief, Petey, and Dog Man’s numerous achievements. He’s referred to as a “supa cop”, referring to not only his capabilities as an officer, but his caring personality, painting the picture that he can “do and be practically everything”. Yet, one thing he seems to lack is a family.

Family is a central theme in this movie, and after barreling through montages, the movie often takes the time to slow down and highlight the loneliness Dog Man feels. After becoming an animal cop, he had headed home, only to realize his owner’s girlfriend had abandoned him, despite him technically surviving the accident. Considering that’s all the family he had, he was essentially left on his own. His original home was also put on sale, and he spent a few moments experiencing flashbacks while looking around the empty house. He eventually bought himself a dog house to live in, but even in moving in there, the movie depicted another moment where he was singing (well, barking) along to a sad song.

Dog Man’s loneliness, sandwiched between moments of high-speed crime fighting and narrative building, is paralleled by the main villain, Petey. A lot of his scenes are him plotting, trying to find efficient ways to get rid of Dog Man, all the while he’s alone in his laboratory (save for an employee he immediately fires). This is especially highlighted when he creates Lil Petey using the cloning machine – only to abandon him, making Petey’s isolation more noticable.

I appreciated the contrast of Dog Man and Petey, because it made the emotional moments more impactful later on. Not only that, but I hadn’t expected the movie to linger on their sadness for as long as it did – this pleasantly surprised me. It was refreshing to see the movie take itself somewhat seriously in that sense.

The movie gets properly into motion after Lil Petey is introduced. There aren’t exactly traditional stakes in this movie; not unlike a book, it follows the character in his daily life, up until a significant situation occurs. There are a few smaller events in the movie (including Dog Man and Petey bonding with Lil Petey on individual times), but the main one ramps up closer to the end.

Essentially, an evil, telekinetic fish named “Flippy” is revived, and is destroying the town, trying to kill “do-gooders”. The individual he ends up targeting is Lil Petey, kidnapping him and sending both the protagonists into a frenzy. This problem leads to Dog Man and Petey deciding to team up, trying to take down Flippy and hopefully save Lil Petey’s life.

As jumbled and often scattered some scenes were, it was all clustered around Lil Petey’s involvement, because for separate parts of the movie he stopped Dog Man and Petey from being alone. Dog Man had lost his family after his accident, and wholeheartedly took on the new friend, the animators making a point to brighten his house once Lil Petey entered his life.

Petey, on the other hand, rejected the idea of family for several reasons – both because his father had left him as a child, and because he wanted to refuse the responsibility of a child. Lil Petey’s affect on him was even more evident, as Lil Petey was tenderhearted and made the effort to show Petey that the world wasn’t as horrible as he believed it was. Petey had that change of heart in the movie, with his son not only giving him companionship, but helping him realize that world wasn’t all dark if he changed the way he looked at it.

I’m a sucker for a good family story (you should’ve seen me during the Wild Robot), so this really resonated with me. The movie, past all its good-natured fun and chaos, was a story about two characters finding family again, after rejecting it and being rejected. Even the later antagonist, Flippy, revealed he was only so evil because people had always denied him any friendship. The movie approached this topic with its slower moments, and went as in depth as it could. For what it was, I think it did a great job, while still keeping the child audience tuned in. The persisting idea of family is valuable for anyone of any age, however, and is a core element even in the books.

Speaking of the books, the movie did a fantastic job capturing the characters, in both mannerism and designs. They looked different, of course, but the most important, very animated aspects of them (expressions, movements) were translated incredibly well. It made it feel closer to the comic-style of the books, though the animation was a lot cleaner then the original artwork.

All in all, the experience of watching Dog Man, not only with family but as a past reader, brought me a lot of joy. Though it is still the traditional kids movie, and I’m not exactly the demographic for it, I still found myself laughing along.  Once again, I’m weak for a narrative about finding family, and in a fun, digestible way, Dog Man delivered on that front.