Dolittle Review · 2:28am Jan 19th, 2020
This is one movie that won't be mentioned in RDJ's obituary speeches when he passes. Except the climax and only as an embarassing joke at his expense.
This movie opens by vomiting Dolittle's entire backstory on it. tl;dr, he was a doctor, the Queen gave him land for an animal sanctuary, he fell in love and married, his wife died, he got sad and closed the sanctuary. Now, some... period of time later, the Queen is dying (she looks younger than RDJ, which is really distracting, is she the Queen's heir or what?) and if she dies the land will be lost, so Dolittle embarks on a quest to find a mythological fruit that can heal her.
This movie feels like someone tossed the RDJ Sherlock Holmes, Willy Wonka, Pirates of the Carribean, and the Eddie Murphy's Dr. Dolittle, into a plender and hit frappe. Dolittle is not a doctor, he's Sherlock Holmes with a dash of Jack Sparrow, we only see him do doctoring at the start and end of the movie, the rest of the time he's out adventuring, his knowledge of animals and ability to talk to them is almost incidental. RDJ phones it in, not that I can blame him since this movie gives him nothing to work with. Also, what kind of doctor is he? He performs surgery, he is apparently a psychologist, and he's also a doctor for humans. And he knows how to sail and build complex machinery.
There's other characters, each more forgettable than the last. There's Boy, who decides out of nowhere he wants to be Dolittle's apprentice after seeing him operate on a squirrel. There's Girl, who is there to say things the plot needs her to say about the Queen. There's Evil Doctor, who was apparently Dolittle's former schoolmate who hates him, and there's British Lord, who has poisoned the Queen so he can be king. They have names you won't remember and personalities you won't notice. The Boy's interesting animals is played as something strange, like animals and humans alike are perplexed by how Dolittle and Boy care about animals and don't just want to kill and eat them. Is this a world where compassion doesn't exist?
Oh, and yes, he can totally become Dolittle's apprentice, because talking to animals is a skill you can just learn and be taught, so after spending several days at sea watching the animals, he becomes able to talk to them. Sure.
As for the animals, they are just out of place. This movie is set in Ye Olde English Times, but the animals talk in modern speech patterns with slang and pop cultural references. It's weird and jarring to hear a polar bear call people "bro" and an ant quoting the Godfather. But they all have their character arcs as shallow as a spoon, which Dolittle even takes the time to sum up at the end of the second act in case we weren't paying attention.
There's no plot, things just happen. Dolittle goes to see the Queen, confirms she's dying, sets sail to get his wife's journal from her father, King Rejected Pirates of the Carribean villain, who hates him because Dolittle's wife was his daughter. Evil Doctor follows and steals the journal and sinks Dolittle's ship, King has a chance of heart and gives him a new ship, they get to the island and get the fruit. In so many places it feels like we're skipping scenes, like we jump from Dolittle making port in the island of the King to him sneaking through the palace in less than a minute, and we jump from them getting to the island with the fruit to them sneaking along a cliff into a cave that leads to the tree, and Evil Doctor is waiting for him.
And then... the climax. This is surreal, but it is true. Every word I am about to say is what actually happens.
The tree is guarded by a dragon, after it tosses around Evil Doctor's henchmen, Dolittle talks to it and they bond (?) over the fact they have dead loved ones, because Dolittle sees another dragon skull in the corner. The dragon suddenly groans and Dolittle realizes she has indigestion from an intestinal blockage. The climax of the movie is Dolittle and his animals giving the dragon a colonoscopy. He pulls armor from various armies she's eaten out of her ass (thankfully and conveniently turned away from us so the CGI artists did not have to sit around thinking "what does a dragon's butthole look like?"), interrupted when the pressure releases causes the dragon to let out a very loud, long fart in his face. And then he ends by pulling out a set of bagpipes. And she thanks him by showing him where the tree is.
...I think that paragraph alone gives reason enough to skip this one. Put on RDJ's Sherlock Holmes on your TV and play Eddie Murphy's Dr. Dolittle on your computer, and swivel your head between them. The resulting two hour experience will make just as much sense as this movie and be just as entertaining.
Sounds like something that I’d have gone to the theatre manager and beat him until he returns my ten silver coins, to paraphrase from a book.
Hollywood is really scraping barrel these days.
Wow, After Iron Man, RDJ's career isn't looking to good........
I honestly wasn't really aware that this was a thing. Now I kinda wish I was still ignorant.
5188439
These days? Its been on a downward trajectory since they worked out "the formula" and stopped caring about innovation or coming up with new properties.
wow
wooooow
i did not know there was ad olittle remake
can i go back to not knowing about it please
One of the big tell-tale signs critics pointed out was that the trailer very carefully edited around DoLittle speaking. The dubbing and accent Downy does just adds to the surrealness of the movie.
January strikes again!
5188463
Yeah, throughout the movie there's places where his overdubbing is very obvious.
5188445
True. But I don’t go see much nowadays. Too many “meh” feelings after seeing the trailers.
5188465
Honestly, aside from the recent Godzilla film, I'm kinda in the same ballpark, and I only went to that because I'm a big Godzilla fan, and I was promised giant monsters (which I got).
5188445
I agree.