You have probably heard of Dog Man back in school or in libraries, but now DreamWorks has finally adapted it to a real film. The movie is based on the Dog Man book series written by Dav Pilkey on August 30th, 2016.  The film was released by DreamWorks on January 31st, 2025. As a kid, I absolutely adored the series having almost all the books, and I am still on the search for the brand new ones that Pilkey has published. Now, I get to watch the movie based on the books, and I was so excited to watch the movie. However, is it really worth the watch?

The movie follows the story of Petey the cat, the classic villain in the book series, who brings constant trouble to the city. Officer Knight and his side kick, Greg the dog, have a very important job of locking Petey back in cat jail. However, the officer and the dog unexpectedly come across a ticking bomb on the verge of exploding. They attempt to diffuse the bomb, but it ultimately explodes and sends both of them straight to the hospital to recover. The nurses at the hospital conclude that the officer’s head and the dog’s body was no longer functioning. As all hope suddenly vanishes, one of the nurses have a brilliant idea to sew the body onto the head. After the surgery was complete, a new crime-fighting cop is released from the hospital. Half-dog, half-man, Dog Man. This combines both the officer’s strength and the dog’s intelligence, creating a unstoppable crime fighting cop. Now Dog Man is going to catch Petey once and for all. Petey isn’t Dog Man’s biggest threat later on as a new powerful villain rises. Even when times are disastrous, Petey’s new clone has made him have a change of heart.

I love how the overall concept of the movie follows the plot across various books in the series. Such as how the event of defusing the bomb was based on the first installment of the book series. The character designs looked exactly the same from how they look in the books, but more cinematic, and it’s one of the things that make me adore this movie. They even went as far as purposely misspelling words such as “Supa-cop” because the books would do the same thing of intentionally misspelling words. This just shows how much DreamWorks cares about their audience and how much they value to give their audience what they want. There are also various references from the books, but the one that stuck out was “Wait, aren’t dogs color blind?”, which came from the first installment of the book series. The movie was extremely humorous too, and it didn’t fail to make me laugh. The illustrations seen in the movie looked surprisingly identical to the ones in the books, and that really blew me away. Unlike some movies, DreamWorks maintained the unique personalities of the characters such as Dog Man’s irresistible urge to chase squirrels to the Mayor’s demanding character.

However, the movie does have its flaws. The movie does cover multiple inventions that Petey has built to stop Dog Man as seen in various books, but I wished they just focused on one threat and one invention that Petey has built. This is because Petey’s inventions in the movie felt extremely rushed and didn’t get as much screen time, so I think they should have focused on just one. Dog Man’s house was also ordinary. What made his house magical and unique from the books was that it felt so joyous and colorful inside, but in the movie it looked like an ordinary house that was shaped like a dog house. I would also like to see more heartwarming scenes with Petey and Li’l Petey, Petey’s clone, because it would be a great opportunity to give Petey more character development. It also did not mention Petey’s mother at all, and I hoped that I would see her. His mother was such an important character in the books that shaped Petey’s character. She was always there for him, yet his father would abandon him in the book series. They also changed the whole design of Petey’s butler. I wished they would keep the original design of the butler seen in the first book. Chief in the books was in love with the same nurse that had made Dog Man, but in the movie they seemed to switch it to the news reporter: Sarah Hatoff. I was confused about this because I was wondering why they changed his love life.

Overall, I absolutely adored this movie. I had an amazing time watching it with my family. Everything was nearly perfect ranging from the talented cast to all of the small little details hidden in the movie. DreamWorks did not disappoint at all, and that is coming from a fan who liked the book series for a while now. I will definitely recommend this movie to you. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

Are you planning to watch Dog Man? Tell us in the comments!