By Philip Berkwit

On January 31st, the DreamWorks animated film, “Dog Man” took over theaters. The film grossed $36 million during its opening weekend. This makes the film the second highest grossing film to be released in January. It only tails behind “Kung Fu Panada 3” which grossed $41.3 million in January of 2016. These numbers are especially impressive since the January box office is known to be dominated by films that released during the Christmas season. Ironically, both of these films were released by the same animation studio, DreamWorks. DreamWorks has become known for its animated pictures. From classics like “Shrek”, “Megamind” and “How to Train your Dragon.” However, DreamWorks is also known to be a very inconsistent studio in both quality and success. Although they have released some of the most critically acclaimed and successful animated films of all time, they have also released just as many critical and financial flops. But when it comes to book adaptations, DreamWorks does not seem to flop. From Biblical adaptations like “The Prince of Egypt” or Scholastic  school adaptations like “The Bad Guys,” DreamWorks doesn’t flop when it comes to book adaptations. This makes “Dog Man” a perfect task for DreamWorks. The film is based on a 9-year-old children’s graphic novel series which continues to have books and stories made to this day. According to Publishing Perspectives, “Since the book series launched in August 2016, “Dog Man” has sold more than 60 million books in print with translations in 47 languages, making it one of the bestselling graphic novel series of all time.”

 Before Dog Man, author Dav Pilkey was most well-known for his children’s book series; “Captain underpants” which has sold more than 80 million copies. Dog Man had the benefit of being a spinoff of Captain Underpants, giving it an immediate audience. Pilkey based both of these books on his childhood. As a hyperactive and easily distracted kid with ADHD, he always got into trouble joking and playing around. His teachers weren’t big fans of his jokes. Due to this, in the second grade Pilkey spent most of his time separated from his class in the hallway. While in said hallway, Pilkey decided to make funny comic books with the characters that have made him famous. These books allowed him to communicate and get along with his classmates. But his teachers still weren’t big fans of his aspirations. Pilkey has constantly talked about the story where his teacher ripped apart his orignal Captain Underpants comic book and told him that he couldn’t spend the rest of his life making silly comic books. Dav claims that he wasn’t a great listener though.

Pilkey was hesitant to give any studio the film rights to his characters. According to the LA Times, Pilkey claimed “I had these characters and this story line that I loved, and I really wanted to make sure that I told all the stories that I wanted to tell before I let it go.” But in 2011, DreamWorks was finally able to make an agreement with Pilkey,”The LaTimes stated, “DreamWorks Animation pursued Pilkey with particular fervor. At one point, as part of the effort to convince him, the author was invited to the DreamWorks campus and found it filled with staffers nonchalantly wearing underwear outside their pants. “They were completely straight-faced — it was so funny,” Pilkey remembered. Finally, in 2011, his resistance softened, and the animation studio acquired the feature film rights.” In 2017, DreamWorks released “Captain Underpants the first Epic Movie.” The film was a huge success, making over $125 million on a $38 million budget and gaining an 87 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Fans praised the film for its humor, heart, expressive animation, and loyalty to the source material.

But it wasn’t until 8 years later that “Dog Man” got his own feature film. The film has found similar success, with a 79 percent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.

 Although “Dog Man” doesn’t quite meet the standards of the Captain Underpants film, it still manages to capture the heart and soul of its source material. The film has impressive animation and keeps true to the books wacky and fast paced sense of humor. The story of Dog Man is somewhat horrific. Officer Knightley, a cop who knows Kung Fu, and his highly intelligent cop dog, Greg are on the case to save the city from the evil cat Petey, played by Pete Davidson. But they learn that Petey put a bomb in the city. They courageously work to stop the bomb from blowing.

But they fail and get blown up.

After this tragedy, the cop and dog are brought to the hospital where they learn that the dog’s body is dying, and the cop’s head is dying. In a stroke of genius, the nurse suggests, “What if we sew the dogs head on the cops body?”

“Great idea!” the nurse responds. They go on with the procedure and the greatest cop to ever face the eyes of man is born. This insane origin story is ripped straight from the book to the screen. This level of insanity reveals to every moviegoer of what “Dog Man” is. This film doesn’t want to be “Schinder’s List,” this movie doesn’t even want to be “Toy Story,” or even “Captain Underpants.” This film simply wants to be what Dog Man is, wacky and fun.

Although at its core Dog Man is a comedy, the books have also become known for their heart. Dog Man is a loving and supportive hero, yet he also struggles with the fact that he lost his old life. He struggles with having the desires of a dog. The Chief of Police loves Dog Man, yet he knows he must discipline him to help him reach his full potential. This is contrasted with Petey the Cat and his son Lil Petey. Petey chooses to be evil, but he is unaware that he can choose to be something greater than evil. The story of Petey is in many ways a tragedy. He is haunted by generational trauma from his terrible father. His son, (who is actually his clone) sees the world in a different light, however. He knows that evil exists, and that the world is hurting, but he doesn’t let that evil define him. He argues with his father and his childlike manner helps his father see that the world is more than just suffering. This is comparable to the great novels of Cormac McCarthy who has always been interest in the idea of finding light in this dark world.

According to an Indiewire interview, Director Pete Hastings stated “I posed this question about Dog Man and Petey at the beginning: Will they have a family? Dog Man has this situation where he loses his family and Petey kind of gets one. Dog Man wants one and Petey doesn’t, but the solution to both of their problems ends up the same.”

However, this film is less than 90 minutes long. Its pacing is insanely fast, and these ideas are sadly not as developed as one would hope. But the film still manages to express itself. This is also shown by its insanely expressive animation. The “Captain Underpants” film was similarly expressive, but that film’s wackiness was based on the creativity of the two children who lead the film. In “Dog Man,” the wackiness is the entire story. The films animation has been compared to the fantastic 2015 film; “The Peanuts Movie.” Both films were able to convert beloved comics into faithful and amazing 3-d animation that still retains the art of its source materials 2-d nature. However, the colors in “The Peanuts Movie” pop much more than “Dog Man.”

The film is also able to improve on its source material in many ways. The Dog Man books have been criticized for forgetting about Dog Man. At a point, the books just became about Petey and Lil Petey. The film understands this complaint and is able to blend the character arcs into one narrative. This change is shown to full effect at the end of the film. Lil Petey is loved by everybody, especially Dog Man and Petey. The film makes Flippy the evil fish and his living buildings a higher evil that want to kill Lil Petey. By making this the final villain and boss of the movie, Petey and Dog Man are able to unite as brothers to save their friend. The story becomes one of unity and brotherhood, a fight for the greater good.

Although the story of Dog Man is not trying to be like the “Captain Underpants” film, its hard not to compare the two. “Captain Underpants” is mostly agreed on to be the better film. The wackiness of “Dog Man” can feel overwhelming, but the wackiness in “Captain Underpants” can feel nostalgic and light. This is because the story of Captain Underpants is told from the perspective of two fourth graders, George and Harold. They are creative, and loving boys who Pilkey actually based off of his personality. The story of Captain Underpants revolves around the two boys and their search for just having fun with each other.

In the Captain Underpants universe, George and Harold are the creators of the Dog Man comics. Many rumors were spreading that the two boys might make a cameo in the “Dog Man” film. The film has one short cameo of the two boys. However, the film is solely about the Dog Man characters. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it still would’ve been a joy to see the two characters that defined Pilkey’s success having a bigger role in the film.

One of the most surprising aspects of the film was also the performance of Pete Davidson as Petey. Davidson is able to give Petey a voice that balances both the humor, trouble making, and sentimental sides of his personality. The last scene of him and his son are especially touching due to Davidsons performance.

Petey is in many ways an antithesis to Shakespeares famous character, MacBeth. Macbeth allows his lust and desire for power to take him over, making him lose not just his mind, but his soul too. Petey is a character who seems to have already given up his soul, but his son is able to bring him back. Petey does not come out of this story as a fully good cat, but he comes out as a different cat.

The director, Pete Hastings also voice acted as Dog Man himself. All Dog Man says in the film are dog things like “woof’ and “ruff” but Hasting is able to deliver these lines in an extremely convincing and fun way. By staying true to the book, and keeping Dog Man as a mostly silent character, the film is able to create humor with Dog Man that feels like it would be in a newspaper comic strip, or a classic cartoon. Hastings is able to give “Dog Man” a wonderfully classic feel that is hard not to be charmed by.

Hastings stated in an interview with IndieWire, “Dave and I grew up in the ’70s on cartoons and all the sort of pop culture of the time and you can really see it in his books. It’s really simple: You only see Dog Man from profile and the buildings are crooked with no windows. I wanted to expand on that.”

The work that the “Dog Man” crew put into animation cannot be understated. It has a style that mixes both 2D and 3D animation that allows it to fit the art of the books. But it would’ve been quite interesting to see what it would have looked like with strictly 2-d animation. There were 2-d animated concepts for the Captain Underpants movie, and it looked spectacular. The Captain Underpans film still looks brilliant with its animation that also mixes 2-d and 3-d animation, but the oversaturation of 3-d animation has become somewhat disappointing in modern animation. Although the animation looks great, it feels like a waste to abandon classic 2-d animation. 3-d animation started to become more prevalent in the very late 90s with entertainment like “VeggieTales,” and “Toy Story.” However, the style of 3-d animation has progressed since then. The animation has progressed to the point where it can look hyper-realistic, almost to an uncanny value. Some studios have realized this and have started to use a style of 3-d animation that resembles 2-d animation. This was popularized by the Oscar winning 2018 film, “Spider- Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” This is also what “Dog Man” did. However, this animation style has also started to become over-saturated. It still looks great and allows for intense and amazing creativity and art, yet animation styles like stop motion and 2-d animation are becoming a thing of the past for the big screen. Some studios still retain these styles like the British stop motion studio; Aardman, and the Irish 2-d studio, Cartoon Saloon. American studios are also still using 2-d and sometimes even stop motion for tv content, but the unique styles are becoming extinct when it comes to American films. It would be unfair to blame “Dog Man” for the loss of 2-d animation, but it does show that American studios are continuing to abandon those styles.

“Dog Man” still manages to be a success with positive reviews and a great box office. It gives super fans of the books nearly everything they can ask for in an adaptation. Although the wackiness and fast pace may be too much for some, the humor and faithfulness of this story cannot be underestimated for fans.

Graphic done by Ryder Navarra