Dolittle
(Universal Pictures)
By Lucas Allen
Children’s author Hugh Loftin’s enduring character Doctor Dolittle has been on the big screen before, with a Hollywood musical from 1967 starring Rex Harrison and the two hit comedies starring Eddie Murphy. This new year, here we have a new movie version of Dolittle that’s hoping to get a few extra bucks from the parents trying to give the kids something to enjoy after the release of “Frozen II.” But they don’t know what they’re in for when the movie is directed by Stephen Gaghan, who’s better known as the Oscar-winning screenwriter for the gritty “adults only” thriller “Traffic.”
In Victorian-era England, a young boy named Tommy (Harry Collett) brings an injured squirrel named Kevin (Craig Robinson) to the animal sanctuary owned by the once-renowned physician John Dolittle (Robert Downey Jr.), who’s gifted with the ability to talk to animals. But the doctor is living as a hermit after the death of his wife seven years earlier. At the same time, the kindly Lady Rose (Carmel Laniado) summons him to go to Buckingham Palace and help Queen Victoria (Jessie Buckley) who’s dying from a mysterious illness. Deducing that he needs a mystical fruit to cure the Queen, Dolittle brings Tommy and some of the animal friends aboard his ship the Water-Lily to head to a mysterious island.
While his loyal dog Jip (Spider-Man himself Tom Holland) guards the Queen, the other animals including Poly the parrot (Emma Thompson), Chee-Chee the gorilla (Rami Malek), Yoshi the polar bear (John Cena), Plimpton the ostrich (Kumail Nanjiani), and Dab-Dab the duck (Octavia Spencer) take the journey. Along the way, Tommy becomes the doctor’s apprentice to the point that he learns how to communicate with the furry creatures. But the heroes will have to work fast before the Queen’s demise as they also have to fend off against the villainous Dr. Mudfly (Michael Sheen), pirate king Rassouli with his vicious tiger Barry (Ralph Fiennes), and a fire-breathing dragon with a (let’s just say) unusual medical issue.
There’s so much to take in about how much a startling mess this movie is. It did have a troubling production plus a lengthy post-production consisted of reshoots ordered by the studio, and it seems to make this film look so bad in the end. Both the talent and the $175 million budget certainly show, but it’s also baffling and difficult to describe what was eventually put on screen that you have to see it to believe it. But for those willing to avoid, there’s still some things to say about what went wrong.
First of all, the story that’s supposed to have an epic scope was butchered to bits and put back together with duct tape and replaces whatever good nature it has with bodily humor and stale jokes. Then you have the cinematography, which looked like it was shot and edited on one of those cheap virtual reality goggles you get at Walmart. It is pretty to look at one would say, but then you’ll end up feeling seasick from the sudden changing angles.
Downey is a great actor, but he’s woefully miscast in the title role especially when he’s delivering his lines in a deeper, cockeyed British accent like if his Sherlock Holmes suddenly moved to the Louisiana Bayou. It seems evident that the character was written with another actor in mind like Jim Carrey, who would’ve brought a more finesse and physicality to the role with his own brand of comedy. It’s severely disappointing to see the former Iron Man stoop this low after Avengers: Endgame that surely, he would rather use the Infinity Stones to snap this film out of existence.
But the real cherry on top of this rotten sundae is the CGI. The animals look more like designs for a PS3 game than the better animal effects in those recent live-action Disney remakes. It doesn’t help that they cast the voice actors to direct them as if they’re in a different movie. With lines like “snitchers get stitches” and “do you understand the words coming out of this bill,” it makes you miss the subtleness of the Ice Age movies.
This Dolittle will have to be put down and buried next to “Pet Sematary.” This is not how anybody wants to start the new year and the new decade. Let’s hope Downey can rise from this and not end up in the same dark path as Johnny Depp’s post-Pirates of the Caribbean era.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: PG (for some action, rude humor, and brief language)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 1.5 Stars (Out of Four)
