Review: Dolittle

A lot of people may not know this, but this is actually the seventh Dr. Dolittle film.
You have the Rex Harrison one in 1967 which was decent enough.
Then it was the Eddie Murphy version in 1998. It was one of the first films I saw at the cinema, and remember having fun with it. As an adult, it has it's charm. But ultimately, it's a kids film.

Then came the four (yes, four) sequels where Murphy was only part of one of them. While I have only seen the second and third installments, I can only imagine Tail To The Chief and Million Dollar Mutts weren't any better.
Now comes a 2020 reimagining, with Robert Downey Jnr. playing the titular character in his first role since his eleven years tenure as Iron Man.

There was some early promise. I was fine with the set-up and the style and story it was going for. But I think once I heard the chosen accent of Downey Jnr. for Dolittle, I was beginning to lose faith. Robert Downey Jnr's randomly chosen Welsh accent was consistently off-putting. I think iit felt that way, as it sounded like it was dubbed. It just felt seperate to how Downey Jnr's mouth movements. Plus, I'm don't know the reasoning behind the Welsh accent. Either way, it wasn't good at all.

After that, almost every aspect was just getting progressively worse. The plot was getting rather dull and the jokes fell completely flat every time. Only positive from that is there is some humor that younger kids might get a kick out of.

Thankfully, there was one aspect that I think worked really well, and that was Michael Sheen's performance. He was by far the best part of the film and felt like the only one that knew exactly what the directors intentions were for the tone. It was that fine line of silliness, but fully committing to the spirit of the story, whilst also showing everyone how to actually do accents.

It's a shame this didn't work, as the source material can create some family magic. But not even the high calibre cast could save this, despite most of the voice-work being pretty solid. Honestly check the cast list, it's really impressive.

It's saving graces were Sheen, the voice performance, the pleasing production design and visual effects and the appeal I could see for younger kids. So while it was not quite complete trash, I cannot recommend this.

Rating: 6/10