Stop Talking: Tepid "Dolittle" tries to please everyone and pleases no one

Dolittle (2020)

101 min.

Screened on January 11, 2020 at Regal UA King of Prussia

Release Date: January 17, 2020 (Wide)

Between the 1967 Rex Harrison-starring musical flop and Eddie Murphy’s enjoyable 1998 update (and a 2001 sequel, as well as three direct-to-DVD follow-ups that Murphy passed on), it’s doubtful anyone ordered to see another adaptation of Hugh Lofting’s series of children’s books, not to mention one in which this Dr. John Dolittle uses a leek to remove a bagpipe from a fire-breathing dragon’s “impacted colon.” Yes, you read that right. “Dolittle” aims to be a whimsical, old-fashioned retelling, but as directed by Stephen Gaghan (2016’s “Gold”) and co-written by Gaghan, Dan Gregor & Doug Mand (2018’s “Most Likely to Murder”), the script’s Victorian setting never gels with the sassy, 21st-century wisecracks uttered by animals (i.e. "Snitches get stitches!" and the modern mantra, “Teamwork makes the dream work!”). The jokes are of the desperate and pandering sort, believing kids will laugh at all talking-critter antics and flatulence, but then there’s also an anachronistic joke referencing “The Godfather” and another pop-culture reference to a memorable Chris Tucker line from “Rush Hour.” Unfortunately, “Dolittle” tries to please everyone and pleases no one, potentially boring children when an animal isn’t giving lip and doing very little for the adults.

An uncharacteristically charmless Robert Downey Jr. mutters his way through the one-note role of veterinarian Dr. John Dolittle with a bizarre, distractingly unintelligible Welsch accent that has possibly been re-dubbed when subtitles wouldn't have hurt. Since the loss of his adventuress wife Lily (Kasia Smutniak), who died at sea, the grieving doctor has secluded himself from all human contact in his estate with his menagerie. One fine day, a young man, Tommy Stubbins (Harry Collett), accidentally shoots a squirrel while hunting with his uncle and rushes to take the adorable rodent to Dolittle. At the same time, young Lady Rose (Carmel Laniado), a future lady-in-waiting from Buckingham Palace, arrives at Dolittle’s estate, requesting his help to save Queen Victoria (Jessie Buckley, who doesn’t even have to get out of bed) from a mysterious illness. After Dolittle deduces his rivalrous former classmate, Dr. Blair Müdfly (a perfectly sniveling Michael Sheen), has poisoned the queen with nightshade—spoiler!—he sets sail on a journey to acquire an antidote.

The animated opening sequence looks gorgeous, like the moving illustrations of a bedtime storybook, that one wishes the rest of “Dolittle” was not a blend of CGI and live-action. There is a starry voice cast—Emma Thompson, as Poly, the parrot; Rami Malek, as Chee-Chee, the gorilla; John Cena, as Yoshi, the polar bear; Ralph Fiennes, as Barry, the tiger; Octavia Spencer, as Dab-Dab, the duck; Marion Cotillard as Tutu, the fox; Craig Robinson as Kevin, a revenge-fueled squirrel; Selena Gomez, as Betsy, the giraffe; Kumail Nanjiani, as Plimpton, the ostrich; and Jason Mantzoukas, as James, the dragonfly—but they merely phone in their personalities with shticky one-liners that range from mildly amusing to flat and stale. The mere idea of Thompson voicing a parrot is already a pure delight, and she earns a few laughs, as do Cena’s polar bear, Nanjiani’s ostrich, and Mantzoukas’ dragonfly. If there are any admittedly funny moments, there is a throwaway gag involving a fly and a seagull. And, despite being shot by cinematographer Guillermo Navarro (director Guillermo del Toro’s go-to collaborator), the editing is frantic and sloppy in between shots and even scenes, and the amount of ADR is glaring. Whether it has met its fate from reshoots and rewrites or just confused filmmaking, “Dolittle” is tolerably tepid and hard to hate but hard to love, even by the metric of light, harmless family entertainment, whereas the “Paddington” films did the talking-animal sub-genre with more of an effortless charm.

Grade: C