Dolittle (2020) Universal/Comedy-Adventure-Fantasy RT: 101 minutes Rated PG (some action, rude humor, brief language) Director: Stephen Gaghan Screenplay: Stephan Gaghan, Dan Gregor and Doug Mand Music: Danny Elfman Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro Release date: January 17, 2020 (US) Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Antonio Banderas, Michael Sheen, Jim Broadbent, Jessie Buckley, Harry Collett, Carmel Laniado, Ralph Ineson, Joanna Page, Sonny Ashbourne Serkis, Kasia Smutniak. Voice cast: Emma Thompson, Rami Malek, John Cena, Kumail Nanjiani, Octavia Spencer, Tom Hollnad, Craig Robinson, Ralph Fiennes, Selena Gomez, Marion Cotillard, Carmen Ejogo, Frances de la Tour, Jason Mantzoukas. Box Office: $77M (US)/$251.5M (World)
Rating: ½*
Robert Downey Jr., once known as Tony Stark/Iron Man of the MCU, is the featured human star of Dolittle. He plays an eccentric doctor with the ability to communicate with animals. Kids, the movie’s target audience, will tell you that the animals are the real stars of the show. I’d probably agree if the animals weren’t CGI creations. To me, the real stars of Dolittle are the parents who brave out the entire agonizing 101 minutes for the sake of their children’s amusement. It’s absolutely, unequivocally awful. It’s like somebody collected real animal fecal matter and digitalized it. It’s pure crap!
Dolittle, the third cinematic rendering of the 19th century literary character created by Hugh Lofting, is latest casualty of post-production repairs following poor test screenings. Originally set for release last spring, it was delayed while it underwent three weeks of re-shoots and script doctoring by Chris McKay (Robot Chicken, The LEGO Batman Movie). As far as I can see, it didn’t help. It’s still a confused, unfunny mess that deserves its spot in the movie deadlands of January.
An animated prologue informs us that John Dolittle was once a happily married man who loved having adventures with his wife. He went into seclusion after she died at sea during a solo expedition. For years, he’s been holed up in his mansion with his menagerie of talking animals (only he can understand them) which includes a macaw (Thompson, Nanny McPhee), a bespectacled dog (Holland, the latest Spider-Man), a duck (Spencer, Hidden Figures), an ostrich (Nanjiani, The Big Sick), a gorilla (Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody), a polar bear (Cena, Daddy’s Home 2) and besties, a giraffe (Gomez, Hotel Transylvania) and a fox (Cotillard, The Dark Knight Rises).
The plot has Dolittle being summoned to the bedside of an ailing Queen Victoria (Buckley, Judy) where he’s tasked with trying to stop her death-by-poisoning by her personal physician Dr. Mudfly (Sheen, Masters of Sex), an old schoolmate and rival of Dolittle, and chair member Lord Badgley (Broadbent, Paddington). To do this, he will need to retrieve his wife’s diary as it will lead him to a legendary tree that bears magical healing fruit. The diary is in the possession of pirate king Rassouli (Banderas, Spy Kids) who has a personal grudge against Dolittle. He embarks on his quest joined by his animal pals and his young, self-appointed apprentice Tommy (Collett), a boy who loves animals as much as Dolittle.
Dolittle, directed by Stephen Gaghan of all people, is a three-make. The first version is the notorious 1967 musical flop starring Rex Harrison. The second is the one from ‘98 starring Eddie Murphy as the titular character. It was so-so at best (and I’m being generous) but did well enough at the box office that we got a really rotten sequel three years later. Dolittle makes Eddie’s movies look better and better by comparison. Nothing in this movie works. NOTHING! A lot of its problems have to do with Gaghan. While not necessarily a poor director, he’s a poor choice of directors for Dolittle. He’s never worked in comedy before. His resume includes Syriana (as writer and director) as well as the screenplay for Traffic. He also worked on duds like Abandon, Gold and the 2004 remake of The Alamo. His style is too heavy-handed for light material like Dolittle. Clumsy as it is clunky, it’s put together in a haphazard manner that strongly suggests somebody else stepped in and attempted to salvage the costly project ($175 million!) only for it to still fail. The screenplay (co-written by Gaghan and two others) is convoluted and sloppily written. Certain plot points, like Dolittle losing his mansion if the Queen dies, are mishandled. The ease with which Tommy bails on his family to set sail with Dolittle is nowhere near plausible. I know that’s quite a thing to say about a movie featuring talking animals, but these are the things you notice when the main story isn’t worth paying attention to.
The CGI is just that, CGI. Disney did it better in last year’s live-action Lion King. The effects in Dolittle are the discount brand version. Much of the time, it’s unclear which animal is speaking. The voices have a strange disembodied quality to them; it’s like the actors recorded their dialogue in separate facilities at different times. It doesn’t sound conversational. This applies to the human actors as well. There’s a lot of looped dialogue that further betrays the post-production patch job.
The acting, if you can call it that, is horrendous. Downey may as well have phoned it in for all the energy he doesn’t bring to his character. In fact, he barely registers as a character at all. Other than the ability to talk to the animals, I can’t think of a single defining trait. The only performance worth mentioning is Sheen who hams it up to the point of embarrassment as a cartoon villain not too far removed from Snidely Whiplash. He may have even twirled his moustache a couple of times. In most cases, this would be fun. In Dolittle, it only serves to emphasize how bad everything else is.
Dolittle is boring and lifeless. It’s not even a little bit cute. I didn’t laugh once. Sheen’s nutty performance is the only reason I’m giving this thing a half star. It’s so out of sync with the rest of the movie, you can’t help but take notice. BTW, this isn’t exactly a compliment. This movie is a complete embarrassment for all involved and a royal mess from start to finish. Sadly, it’s not the interesting kind of mess. I fought to stay awake during most of Dolittle and let me tell you, it was a fight I would have been glad to lose. My time would have been better spent taking a nap than watching this abomination of a family movie. I guarantee whatever dream I had would have been more entertaining. That includes my recurring dream about being trapped in a theater showing a really bad movie…. wait a minute!
