Dolittle is a fantasy adventure film based on the Hugh Lofting's 1922 book The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle as well as a reboot to the Dr. Dolittle films. The movie is produced by Media Rights Capital, Team Downey, and Roth Films and distributed by Universal Pictures. Dolittle is written by Stephen Gaghan, Dan Gregor, and Doug Mand and directed by Stephen Gaghan.
The story is it's been seven years after the death of his wife and the famous Doctor Dolittle has become a hermit and hides himself within the walls of Dolittle manor with only his animals to keep him company. Everything changes when Queen Victoria becomes gravely ill and now Dolittle must go an adventure to a mythical island to find the cure.
Initial Reaction
Now at first I had no intention of seeing this movie. Mainly because I'm a fan of the 1998 film starring Eddie Murphy, so I had a mind set of why mess with a good thing (although I guess you can say that film was already messed with after the studios decided to make three direct-to-video spin-offs but that's neither here nor there). But then I saw a commercial for the movie and I was interested. Mostly because yes it's very different from the 98' film but I was also curious to what Robert Downey Jr. would be up to since he's no longer playing Iron Man.
Cons
There are many problems with this movie, one of them unfortunately is Robert Downey Jr's performance. The main problem with his acting being he sounds like he's trying to do a British accent but yet it sounds like when he's doing this accent he also had something stuck in his mouth. I really hate talking about Downey being a bad actor because he has shown to be a great performer and NO, I'm not talking about Iron Man. I'm talking Chaplin, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Good Night, and Good Luck, Zodiac, Tropic Thunder (👍), The Soloist, and Sherlock Holmes. Stuff like that. Now to discuss the other part of Dolittle that people are talking about, and that's the humor. Yeah....it's pretty bad. There were maybe two times that I laughed but a majority of the time I was just shaking my head. Especially that dragon scene....oh my god, that scene really made me think why did Downey sign on for this. So the humor is just a complete failure. Another thing that makes the movie bad is our generic/cartoony villain named Dr. Blair Müdfly. This guy was such a cartoon character from the older Looney Tunes shorts that I was just waiting for the moments when he fiddles with the mustache part of his goatee, cackle evilly, rub his hands together, or shout "CURSES!" whenever he fails. The final thing I'll criticize Dolittle for is the adventure part of the story. Throughout the whole movie I just didn't care, because the writing for the film was so poorly done that it didn't matter what was going to happen next. If anything you're just waiting for the movie to get to the end as fast as possible.
Middle Ground
The only thing that didn't really upset me about Dolittle was the CGI. It's nothing really special but I found serviceable. Sure it could have been polished up a little bit but I didn't mind it most of the time.
Pros
I've got nothing to say. Let's move on.
So yes, sadly Dolittle is not what were hoping for when it comes to Downey's post-MCU career. Downey's acting isn't all that good, it has bad jokes, an even worse villain, and a really boring swashbuckling adventure. The grey area is the CGI.
My final rating is Awful
So that's all for me. Come back on Monday, Jan 27th for my Cinematic Disaster review of 2000's Ready to Rumble. Yes, I'm reviewing another bad comedy flick...because apparently I want to torture myself for the remainder of January. Until then enjoy the rest of your day and stick to the Eddie Murphy Dr. Dolittle movie.
There are many problems with this movie, one of them unfortunately is Robert Downey Jr's performance. The main problem with his acting being he sounds like he's trying to do a British accent but yet it sounds like when he's doing this accent he also had something stuck in his mouth. I really hate talking about Downey being a bad actor because he has shown to be a great performer and NO, I'm not talking about Iron Man. I'm talking Chaplin, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Good Night, and Good Luck, Zodiac, Tropic Thunder (👍), The Soloist, and Sherlock Holmes. Stuff like that. Now to discuss the other part of Dolittle that people are talking about, and that's the humor. Yeah....it's pretty bad. There were maybe two times that I laughed but a majority of the time I was just shaking my head. Especially that dragon scene....oh my god, that scene really made me think why did Downey sign on for this. So the humor is just a complete failure. Another thing that makes the movie bad is our generic/cartoony villain named Dr. Blair Müdfly. This guy was such a cartoon character from the older Looney Tunes shorts that I was just waiting for the moments when he fiddles with the mustache part of his goatee, cackle evilly, rub his hands together, or shout "CURSES!" whenever he fails. The final thing I'll criticize Dolittle for is the adventure part of the story. Throughout the whole movie I just didn't care, because the writing for the film was so poorly done that it didn't matter what was going to happen next. If anything you're just waiting for the movie to get to the end as fast as possible.
Middle Ground
The only thing that didn't really upset me about Dolittle was the CGI. It's nothing really special but I found serviceable. Sure it could have been polished up a little bit but I didn't mind it most of the time.
Pros
I've got nothing to say. Let's move on.
So yes, sadly Dolittle is not what were hoping for when it comes to Downey's post-MCU career. Downey's acting isn't all that good, it has bad jokes, an even worse villain, and a really boring swashbuckling adventure. The grey area is the CGI.
My final rating is Awful
So that's all for me. Come back on Monday, Jan 27th for my Cinematic Disaster review of 2000's Ready to Rumble. Yes, I'm reviewing another bad comedy flick...because apparently I want to torture myself for the remainder of January. Until then enjoy the rest of your day and stick to the Eddie Murphy Dr. Dolittle movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment