“Dog-Man” dashed into theatres on January 31, 2025 and succeeded greatly. Based on the book series by Dav Pilkey, the “Dog-Man” movie, a nostalgia packed film full of Easter eggs and respect to the original content. With a relatively short run time of an hour and a half, “Dog-Man” manages to fill every minute with comedy and action packed Dog-Man shenanigans. With a Rotten tomatoes score of 81% and an audience score of 85% Many viewers and critics loved this movie. With a talented cast, as well as a 40 million dollar budget, the “Dog-Man” movie surpassed expectations, grossing nearly $70 million worldwide, making it 2025’s biggest debut yet, as well as the sixth highest grossing movie of 2025.
“Dog-Man” delves into the nostalgia of its audience, many viewers read the dog man books in their youth (almost ten years ago) and came to see it in theatres for a walk down memory lane. Peter Hastings (as well as Dav Pilkey) co-wrote the movie, the two writers both worked to make this movie honor the viewers of the original content by attempting to give them a movie to remember. The two writers succeeded in that attempt, creating a movie just as memorable as the books the original audience read. The movie follows Dog-Man, a service dog and police officer hybrid created by surgeons in an attempt to save the two’s lives after suffering from a dangerous explosion. Dog-Man often fights against his nemesis, Petey, played by Pete Davidson. Petey accidently creates li’l Petey, his child, while trying to clone himself. Petey wants to resurrect Flippy, the telekinetic fish with the power to defeat Dog-Man, this leads to a freak accident at the “living spray factory”, which awakens the entire factory to “destroy all do-gooders”. Dog-Man
fights the factory, but cannot defeat it on his own. Petey and Dog-Man team up to defeat the new, more dangerous enemy, the living spray factory.
The film teaches an important lesson to the children and adults watching the movie, that people should not be afraid to ask for help, and that teamwork can lead to prosperity. These are all good lessons for children to learn, but a lesson for the older audience in one of the subplots of the movie about Li’l Petey’s grandfather, whom he calls Grampa. Grampa’s subplot teaches the film’s older audience about the dangers of generational trauma, by showing how Petey treats Li’l Petey because of how Grampa treated him. The movie’s warning of allowing history to repeat itself reached both children and adults alike, and tries to teach them an important lesson about family dynamics and ties.
The “Dog-man” movie takes the silly, creative and charming feel of the books, and transfers it onto the silver screen perfectly. To keep the film’s look as close to the original content as possible, co-writer and director Peter Hastings had the animators take the 2-D drawings of the original book, and translate it into CG using tactile textures to keep the hand-drawn look. Having Dav Pilkey as a co-writer, another decision was made to keep the movie as close to the books as possible. The Dog-Man movie honored and respected the original content, giving its original audience as well as those who have never heard of it before, a movie to remember. The “Dog-Man” movie earns itself a spectacular 8.7/10
