I grew up reading Dav Pikley’s Dogman, laughing at jokes that would make the current me cringe. This is why I was thrilled when Dreamworks announced a Dogman movie in the works.
The story follows the journey of Dogman, a cop with a dog’s head, as he tries to stop the villainous cat Petey, played by Pete Davidson. Throughout the film, their conflict spirals into a variety of adventures. The film introduces a plethora of characters from the books, including Li’l Petey, Flippy and Petey’s father, who are played by Lucas Hopkin Calderon, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Root respectively.
As with most adaptations, the days of eager anticipation were mixed with moments of agonizing worry that it would be unfaithful, unrelated or just plain boring. I needed Dreamworks to produce a good adaptation of my childhood comics.
And that's exactly what I got.
The movie mixes several different storylines and plot points from the book. It takes nostalgic bits and pieces to attempt to make the most recognizable movie for fans. For example, we see the birth of Dogman, from the book “Dogman,” Li’l Petey’s abandonment, from the book “A Tale of Two Kittens” and the ending directly copied from the book “For Whom the Ball Rolls.”
I was shocked by the characters and storylines that I recognized. I don’t usually talk during movies, but I was constantly whispering to my friend about which book they adapted.
While the animation wasn’t anything too crazy, the style perfectly adapted the childish and simple art from the comics. Pikley’s style is incredibly 2D, but the film adapted it into 3D wonderfully.
The characters were written so perfectly I wouldn’t change a single thing about any of the characters. Everything about the characters was done completely accurately, from their designs to their voices. For example, Petey’s voice actor Pete Davidson matched exactly how I thought Petey would sound, which made the movie all the more faithful.
The movie also absolutely nailed all of their personalities. As with most child characters in movies, it can be easy for them to come off as annoying or irritating, but surprisingly, I didn’t feel that way with Li’l Petey. Li’l Petey is the clone that Petey makes in order to replace his assistant, which ends up backfiring because the clone takes 18 years to mature. Although originally hostile, Petey develops a bond with Li’l Petey as Li’l Petey turns him from a cruel criminal to a caring father.
The dynamic between Li’l Petey and his “father” (Petey) was on another level. It was absolutely beautiful watching him slowly warm up his father’s evil and broken heart. Just like in the comics, it was wonderful to see Petey’s normally twisted personality warm up and change when around Li’l Petey, molding into the father figure he never had.
Watching the dynamic between Li’l Petey and Dogman was incredibly sweet and wholesome, taken almost exactly from the books. The scenes like Dogman adopting Li’l Petey after Petey abandons him went a long way to showcase their relationship.
My biggest criticism with the movie was the large amount of characters and plotlines crammed into 90 minutes of screentime. Since the movie is a mishmash of all the important elements and characters from all the books, the pacing was incredibly rushed. For big fans like me, this meant one positive wave of nostalgia after another. But for someone who had never read the books, this could be disorienting and chaotic.
Another issue was that a lot of major characters were sidelined. Major characters like Chief, Flippy the Fish, Sarah Hatoff and 80-HD received little screen time compared to the time spent with characters like Dogman and Petey. While it’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of the other characters, I do understand why they chose to prioritize more important characters.
Overall, the movie is a fantastic adaptation of the original books. If you grew up reading the book like I did, you’ll definitely enjoy watching this movie.
