[Rating: Minor Rock Fist Up]
As an educator, I have seen a drastic change in how children absorb literature. Reading is no longer a fun thing for them because of the magic of the cell phones that fit in their hands. Trying to get my own students to read a book in order to get a pizza coupon just doesn’t win against Tik-Tok. Graphic novels have become the norm because half the time, the pictures tell the story, with no words provided.
In my youth, yes we had such books like Captain Underpants, and now from the same author, Dav Pilkey comes an adaptation of his newest series, Dog Man (directed by Peter Hastings who does double duty as the ‘voice’ of Dog Man) about a canine cop trying to save his town.
The well known villain-cat Petey (Pete Davidson) is trying to destroy all do-gooders, including a cop and his dog companion. When cop and dog are injured in one of Petey’s plans, two doctors decide to merge cop and dog to create, you guessed it, Dog Man!
Dog Man has the body of his owner, and the head of himself. He is a new “supa-cop” who has taken it upon himself to stop all crime in the city. Meanwhile, Dog Man’s boss the Chief (Lil Rel Howery) is constantly annoyed at the attention Dog Man gets, particularly from news reporter Sarah Hatoff (Isla Fisher). Petey meanwhile, has a new plan to rid the world of Dog Man through genetic cloning. We are introduced to his clone, Li’l Petey (Lucas Hopkins Calderon) who is more interested in being kind than evil. Soon, Li’l Petey and Dog Man become friends and try to stop not only Petey, but Flippy the Fish (Ricky Gervais), one of Dog Man’s old enemies who wants to do even more harm than Petey can do!
Let me just set the record straight here…I have personally read all 13 volumes of the Dog Man book franchise and they are charming as hell. When I went to see this, there were mountains of children there and as they saw their favorite characters come to life, I too responded back to “Oh! That’s… I didn’t know they were in this!” One child behind me even got the name of a character wrong and I corrected him to my fellow film fan.
Dog Man is a cute movie. I think it doesn’t do a whole lot to reinvent the animation wheel, but has all the zany as hell plot details and goofiness that a lot of the series is known for. I did also like that bringing this graphic novel to life made the filmmakers use a different style of animation, instead of the typical 3D that we as audiences are used to. I was also particularly pleased that this covers plots in about the first two or three books in the series.
Dog Man is a swell movie for kids and families. If this series gets kids to read, then more power to it. At least it is getting them to read and not become AI zombies. What would Dog Man have to say about that?
Christian Ramos is a classic film fan, having had the dream to host Turner Classic Movies for years now. He also has a large amount of Oscar trivia in his head, remembers dressing as Groucho Marx one Halloween, and cherishes the moment Julianne Moore liked his tweet.
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