Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

A Doctor who can say ‘Tell me where it hurts’ to more than one species

The Synopsis
After the death of his wife, renowned veterinarian, adventurer and animal communicator Dr John Dolittle (Robert Downey Jr) has completely shut himself away from the world. His only friends are the animals that live with him, but his time living like an animal comes to an abrupt end when the Queen of England’s life is on the line.

The Good
Something I didn’t expect, is to laugh as much as I did watching Dolittle. Most of the humour came from the animals, and a special shout out to Dab-Dab the duck voiced by Olivia Spencer who particularly had me in stitches.

A different take to the previous movies about the Doctor, and I was pleased with the animation/CGI/animatronics (whatever it is there did to make those animals walk and talk) I for one bought into the illusion that they were talking and sailing a ship. It was a solid family movie, as you’d expect from something filled with animals and children. But what I liked was that it wasn’t too soft – Dolittle is easily enjoyable for the parents who are taking their children with little risk of them falling asleep!

The Bad
I did realise very quickly that Dolittle was very “The Robert Downey Jr. show” I get that he played the titular character, and he was more often than not surrounded by animals – however there were a few other humans that could have just been given 10% more screen time.

Personally I wouldn’t have minded if there was a C story for just the animals alone, or a little more about what the bad guys were planning back in England whilst the main characters had taken to the sea, if for no other reason than to break things up.

Guys – what was that accent he was putting on? I couldn’t not hear it, and after maybe half the movie I figured he was going for Welsh (maybe?!). I personally found this incredibly distracting because the accent was so poor. It also didn’t add much to his character and so maybe they could have gone with something a little less off-putting.

The Conclusion
This was an easy and more importantly, fun watch to restart the Dr Dolittle franchise since Eddie Murphy’s take in 1998 (and the four sequels it bore). However after all is said and done, the movie was far from memorable, and  you could as well see this one as you could leave it.