28. Dog Man
We still have a bit left to go before we get to the films I think are bad, I'm noticing. The next few are all good films, but just didn't make the cut for the top list.
As for this one, it's fun! It’s the story about a man who was a dog and a man. He got into an accident and the doctors decided to sew the dogs head onto the man’s body. He is now Dog Man and he has become legend.
First and foremost, I want to acknowledge that it is interesting that I have this almost directly above the another certain film in a similar style and execution as this one.It feels appropriate. Personally, though, I feel like Dog Man is the better film simply because of how much heart and genuine conflict is injected within it. It dives into a lot more interesting themes than its predecessor.
For one thing, Dog Man’s life sucks. It makes that clear from the jump. When he comes back as a Dog Man he finds that his girlfriend has immediately left him and that fact gets sort of rubbed in his face before he goes off to live by himself.
Slowly, as the movie goes on, he forms and solidifies the relationships he has with the people around him so that things aren’t so bad but the amount of times he goes back to being down in the dumps due to gaining someone and losing someone feels like actual mental torment. How could life treat such a good boy so cruelly?
Petey is the “villain” of the film. He’s an evil cat who clones himself and makes a Lil’ Petey of himself. Lil’ Petey is a young boy whose optimistic and happy about life and as such, of course, Petey doesn’t like him and refuses to acknowledge that the cloner spat out something that represents a side of him that he’s repressed and doesn’t like.
Despite the film being called Dog Man, an argument could easily be made that Petey is the heart of the film. It’s not as if Dog Man doesn’t go on his own journey but Petey has the biggest and best amount of growth and change throughout. When the evil fish he resurrected as the factory that breathes life into dead things runs amok and attacks the city with buildings that have also come alive it becomes apparent that he’s going to have to make a change for the good of his new companion and son.
Yes, based on that previous paragraph, the absurdity of what happens within these kinds of movies still exists. It’s stylized and made to look and sound as ridiculous as possible while still, impressively, maintaining its own dignity. It especially manages to retain my respect when it does what it does with Petey’s dad. Let’s just say that not everyone can change. Some parents are just assholes and they hate you. You just gotta move on and be better.
The pacing of the film, however, did get to me a few times. More than once I recall sitting there wondering where things were going and not in the sense that I was so wrapped up in the story that I couldn’t tell what might happen next. No, there are genuine moments where it feels like it MIGHT not know what to do next or that it’s taking a little too long to get to the point. The movie never feels long, thankfully, but I was left with a sense that there probably could have been times where it spent the time it did have a bit better.
Maybe give Dog Man a little bit more to his story so that his story balances out better with Petey’s. He’s going to be a significant part of the story regardless because Petey’s so fixated on him and the relationship Lil’ Petey forms with Dog Man ends up being integral to the plot. Dog Man still feels like he should have gotten just a tad bit more though.
Despite that, because of the themes it tackles and how it manages to carry itself, I do honestly consider this a better and more impressive film than the movie that preceded it. I used to love the books of it's predecessor when I was young but for some reason, I couldn’t feel the essence of what I love coming back to me as powerfully as I wanted it too.
I’ve never read a Dog Man book before but it managed to really charm me. Perhaps if I had, this film would be a tad higher.
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6 months ago
11 Mar 2025 23:18 CET
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