Sit. Stay. Good Boy. Write a review? Make Highlights? Yes. Have a treat.
In the most interesting case of my most interesting job, I decided to do things a little differently compared to my usual review or interview. Because I really feel like I need to try other formats. So I’ll talk about this movie based off some book series I keep seeing on bookstore shelves and try to do so the best I can.
While I enjoyed a lot of Dav Pilkey’s books as a youngster, I never got into the newer stuff like his younger fans do. It’s the age-old story of ageism. Recently, after his long-lasting series of Captain Underpants showed how George and Harold made their first comic in a flashback type story, fans seemed more interested in Dog Man, thus causing the waistband warrior series to end, and the two young heroes of that series decided to go back to their humble beginnings and give their first hero a revamp. This resulted in a new series of books by two fictional characters with ADHD, though in actuality, made by a man with dyslexia (but as a youngster, he did get diagnosed with ADHD b/w excess). So after an earlier movie about those two boys and their prinicpal got released, followed by a string of Netflix episodes and specials, Dreamworks decided they had to make a movie of the canine cop, and unlike with Captain Underpants, it didn’t take a long time convincing Dav to make this one, I guess he’s had a change of perspective on movies since I was a kid. Speaking of perspectives, I got a young guest contributor to give his two cents (per word) on this one. Included in this summary are blockquotes by my little pal, Ari, who would like to start off with
No, he’s not a dog. He’s a 5-year-old boy who specifically wanted to start off with that. Well, I guess we’ll see how this works out. Here are the main factors that prove Dog Man is one of the greatest films for kids that made great success in Canada this year.
Epic trailer with interesting moments
I’ve seen the trailer for the movie a couple of times, usually when I was with Ari and his family, because I happen to be a (soon-to-be old) family friend. The trailer has some interesting moments featuring some of our main characters and the two medical experts responsible for combining a dog with a man like Dr. Frankenstein. We learn of the characters within a matter of seconds.
The whole story is that both a man and a dog were severely injured in their last investigation together, but somehow the dog’s head and the man’s body were still alive, which led to a fusion operation like I said. Let’s hope nobody lost a medical license over that, but Dog Man embraces both his new body and personality, with word spread by Sarah Hatoff, who works as a news reporter throughout the movie. While he’s hailed as a hero, not everybody is comfortable with this new fellow. Dog Man’s boss, the chief of police heavily disapproves of the animal behaviour and is actually pretty jealous with Dog Man’s rising popularity. Dog Man’s enemy is none other than a cat named Petey who makes a young clone of himself to help him around his home. Aside from these interesting characters in the trailer, it brought back a hit from my teenage years and my brother’s teenage years, Harder Better Faster Stronger by Daft Punk. A great song for your playlist when working out or when you’re preparing for something big. With all of those put together, you can see why so many people went in to watch this.
Sales
Now that I’ve gotten into what happened beforehand, it’s time to bring up the amount of sales because a lot of people bought tickets for this film. Previous news reports have explained how manged to beat other movies, gaining $13.7 million in ticket sales. That’s a pretty steep number and you have to wonder if some people came in to see it twice because of what it was like. Obviously there were just a lot of kids excited to see it, which is probably the most suitable explanation. Despite having a great weekend at first, however, the second dropped steeply by 62%, but the film still managed to tally $54.1 million topping its production budget of $40 million. Not bad.
Dog Man has already made its way to the digital world on February 18, gaining plenty of views and repeat views to keep every child entertained. But for those of us who still prefer circulars, it is also available on Blu-Ray and DVD. Those have been on the market since April 1st and the sales have been doing pretty well for those as well.
Great Moments of the Movie
Dog Man had its success because the movie was full of all kinds of interesting moments. Dog Man and Petey were practically chasing each other throughout the whole film and no matter how many times Petey got arrested, he’d escape from jail instantly. Which always lead to more conflict between the two. Petey would always try to best his arch nemesis with numerous weapons and inventions.
Yes, you read that right. A giant vacuum cleaner. You got to give the cat credit for being both a crafty escape artist and a genius inventor. One of the other inventions he had was a giant robot suit named 80-HD, a notable nod to the original creator of the creators. Petey also cloned himself, creating Lil Petey, but the little one ends up in the care of Dog Man. A lot of the books that were published seemed to be squeezed into this movie, but I guess they’re all pretty short stories. I wouldn’t know, I haven’t read them.
Another hilarious part involved houses that could move on their own, which probably lead to some interesting gag moments, especially with something me and my younger brother always enjoyed: Giant novelty props atop buildings of local businesses.
The epic parts were especially exciting as well. Most good guy and bad guy stories end with an arrest, but in this film, everyone gets to see something I really like, and that’s when a villain no matter how nasty they’ve been shows a small part in their heart when they are actually gentle for once. Petey is a good example of one showing he’s not just some flat personality villain, and even Dog Man can sense that.
Conclusion
Dog Man made great strides and still continues to be cool today, I think a lot of people truly enjoyed watching it. It’s a good blend of funny, intense, and even heartwarming. All of the characters are well written, the story while somewhat different from the original is still incredibly made, and the design of the characters has a vivid and colourful look to make watching all the more appealing.