Dolittle
This is what became of Iron Man following the first snap.
Dr. John Dolittle – Robert Downey, Jr.
Rassouli – Antonio Banderas
Dr. Blair Mudfly – Michael Sheen
Tommy Stubbins – Harry Collett
Polynesia – voiced by Emma Thompson
Chee-Chee – voiced by Rami Malek
Yoshi – voiced by John Cena
Plimpton – voiced by Kumail Nanjiani
Dab-Dab – voiced by Octavia Spencer
Jip – voiced by Tom Holland
Kevin – voiced by Craig Robinson
Barry – voiced by Ralph Fiennes
Betsy – voiced by Selena Gomez
Tutu – voiced by Marion Cotillard
Director – Stephen Gaghan
Screenplay – Stephen Gaghan, Dan Gregor & Doug Mand
Based on characters created by Hugh Lofting
Producer – Joe Roth, Jeff Kirschenbaum & Susan Downey
Rated PG for some action, rude humor and brief language.
The Rundown: Several years after the death of his wife, famed veterinarian Dr. John Dolittle (Robert Downey, Jr.) has secluded himself within the confines of his walled manor, with only the animal friends he can actually speak to keeping him company. However, after he receives news of Queen Victoria falling gravely ill, it is up to him to set sail on an adventure in search of the cure.
Pre-Release Buzz: Well, folks. Here we are, finally at the post-Marvel era of Robert Downey, Jr., beginning with Dolittle, a character that has been adapted many times before, from the disastrous 1967 Rex Harrison bomb to the late-’90s, early-’00s Eddie Murphy comedies. If the news of this film’s production issues were any indicator, RDJ’s post-Iron Man career would suggest a less-than promising start. Following co-writer/director Stephen Gaghan’s completion of the project, poor test screenings forced Universal to bring in directors Jonathan Liebesman and Chris McKay to do reshoots – never a good sign – thereby pushing the release date back months. But after a rocky and very, very, very expensive production, Dolittle is here at last, so how is it?
The Good: I’m sure the on-set catering was delicious.
The Bad: There’s a moment near the beginning of the film where Dolittle’s wife sets sail on a quest, never to return again… ’cause she dies. One, I think she knew what I was about to witness and made damn sure to take off and be as far away from this movie as she could. Two, I, honestly, couldn’t have envied a character’s outcome more than I did hers.
I’ll admit that when I first saw the trailers for Dolittle, I wasn’t impressed, but I was at least expecting something mediocre or a mild weekend diversion for the family. Nothing special, but also nothing too terrible. I wasn’t expecting this to be the massive, stinking, rotting and disgustingly putrid pile of shit that it is.
This movie is awful, and not even entertainingly awful. It’s dig my eyeballs out with an icepick awful.
There’s not a frame of this film that doesn’t have its troubled production shoot sticking out like a sore thumb, and it’s really disappointing that it turned out that way, ’cause given the embarrassment of riches this film has in terms of talent both in front of and behind the camera, there’s no reason I can think of that this film shouldn’t have been at least decent. You have Robert Downey, Jr., fresh off his successful tenure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, along with a bevy of all-star talent providing either live-action or animate
How does all that talent turn out something so bad?
What’s abundantly clear here is that Gaghan is out of his element. It’s even more clear that the studio believed that to be true as well given the directors they brought in to do multiple reshoots. I can’t really blame Gaghan entirely. After all, shame on the studio for thinking, “You know who we should get to direct our whimsical family
Still, Gaghan doesn’t escape this completely unscathed, as he is the billed director and co-screenwriter, so the buck stops with him. The tone is all over the map (which is almost an inherent price to pay when you’re brining in different directors with possibly different visions to do reshoots); scenes and various plot threads connect to each other as seamlessly as a toddler cramming the plastic square block into the circular hole; and for a film that cost a reported $175 million to make (and that’s not counting marketing costs), the CGI is so poorly put together you can see the blurry outline around the actors in scenes where green screen was so obviously used.
Even more baffling is the script, which doesn’t appear to know what audience it’s aiming for. This is a film that’s meant to be targeted at kids, yet Gaghan and his team of screenwriters employ humor that is just bizarre. The film takes place in 19th century England, yet while the live-action characters speak in the language apt for that period, the animals speak in present day slang and phrases. Octavia Spencer voices a duck that throws out a Rush Hour reference when she cries, “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my beak?!” A conversation between Dr. Dolittle and a squid has the cephalopod responding, “Snitches get stiches!” And most out-of-place of them all is a cute absentee dad joke John Cena’s polar bear makes when he fondly reminisces about the time his dad “went out for a pack of seals and he never saw him again.”
Who the hell is this movie for? If it’s for kids, then why would you expect them to get a reference to a buddy cop action comedy that came out over two decades ago?
Worst of all, and this one pains me to say, is Robert Downey, Jr.’s performance, which is atrocious. RDJ has such an effortlessly charming presence about him, and not just in the Marvel movies. He’s downright terrible here, though, and most of it has to do with whatever mind-bogglingly, half-baked, whatever the hell kind of accent he’s doing. This would explain why the trailer limited how much dialogue is actually spoken by him. I can’t put a finger on what accent it is, but the best I can describe it is this hushed, impression of William Shatner doing an impression of Liam Neeson doing a drunken, half-asleep, mumbled take on Horatio Bonar.
“We. must. embark… on this… perilous. journey.”
The icing on the cake is that, reportedly, RDJ had all his lines dubbed in, so if the voice to you seems disembodied from his onscreen performance, there’s your reason why, and it’s so cringe-inducingly obvious, the studio’s basically doing all but flash advertising on the screen that they ADR’d his lines.
The Ugly: When talking about the abomination that was Cats in my “Top 10 Worst Films of 2019” post, I rattled off a broken record’s worth of “You haven’t lived” lines that best described why that train wreck needed to be seen to be believed. And it only took just a few
Now, to be clear, unlike Cats, Dolittle should not be seen… at all. Yes, both are indescribably horrible pictures, but Cats at least did not bore me. Yes, for every wrong reason imaginable that I’m most 100% certain the cast and filmmakers did not intend in any way, but still…
All that said... You. Have. Not. Lived. until you have seen Robert Downey, Jr. ramming a leek stalk straight up an animated dragon’s ass and then yanking a set of bagpipes right out of that scaly monster’s shitter hole.
Yes, readers. That actually happens… in a kids movie.
Remember that moment we all saw at the end of the film’s second trailer when RDJ’s getting plastered in the face with the mighty gust of wind? I bet you now know where that source of air was coming from. Yep, that was Iron Man himself getting totally facialed by that dragon’s ass crop-dusting out a good ole can o’ cheddar.
It’s a scene that is quite fitting, an apt metaphor for the 90-plus minutes of shit this film bottom burped directly in front of my face.
Consensus: Paced like a slug on heroin and packed to the brim with humor as stale as the same-day expired egg salad sandwich you thought you were getting a sweet deal on from the deli clearance rack, Dolittle marks a disappointingly tragic career low-point for pretty much everyone involved.
But at the very least, Robert Downey, Jr. can now have giving a CGI dragon a colonoscopy with a large vegetable checked off from his bucket list.
Don’t worry; Kevin Feige’s expecting your call.
Silver Screen Fanatic’s Verdict: I give Dolittle an F (0 stars).
About Post Author
