Dolittle Is a Mess of Animal Antics and Disjointed Storytelling

Universal

The question may arise upon seeing the poster featuring an uninterested-looking Robert Downey Jr.: why did someone have to make another film about Doctor Dolittle?

To be honest, the premise at least holds a unique appeal. Forgoing the familiar origin story of a doctor discovering he can talk to animals, Dolittle stages the titular hero more as an aged grump, a Willy Wonka–style hermit who could use some new blood to wake him up. It’s an interesting idea, and there are many more present within the film. It quickly becomes clear, however, that the production has more ideas than the right glue to hold it all together.

Here’s how confoundingly the film proceeds in its brisk pacing. We start with a gorgeous animated sequence explaining how Dolittle lost his wife and now closes himself off from the world within his menagerie. Before we can explore much of that, we meet Tommy (Harry Collett), a teenager who longs not to be a hunter but someone who helps animals, aiming to be Dolittle’s apprentice. But before Tommy can even get to Dolittle’s door, we’re also introduced to Lady Rose (Carmel Laniado), who’s coming to request Dolittle’s help with a dying Queen of England.

One animal surgery later, the doctor is already off to see the queen with all his companions that only he can understand, and we soon learn the monarch has a mysterious illness that can only be cured by a mysterious fruit on a mysterious island. Adventure abounds for the Dolittle, but not before we’re introduced to more characters: Dolittle’s old rival, Dr. Blair Müdfly (Michael Sheen), and the conspiring Lord Thomas Badgley (Jim Broadbent).

Of course, there are plenty of animal characters voiced by a notable cast, but they too are as crowded in as the ideas they must shove into this story. Emma Thompson plays the motherly macaw who has to act as the narrator, the caretaker of Dolittle’s health, and the only animal that other humans can understand. Rami Malek is a fearful gorilla who may one day be strong enough to fight back. Kumail Nanjiani is a fussy ostrich who may just form a friendship with a polar bear voiced by John Cena. Jason Mantzoukas is a dragonfly who seems to be on the prowl for a girlfriend, regardless of which species she may be. And that’s not even half the voice cast loaded with specific personalities that include the likes of Octavia Spencer, Ralph Fiennes, and Tom Holland.

Are you starting to see a problem with all this? It’s just too much for a 100-minute movie to hold. I can’t help but feel there’s a far longer cut of the film out there given how excruciatingly choppy the whole theatrical version is. There are few down moments and rarely enough time to get to know and love the characters during the frenzied set pieces they’re forced into. So many scenes happen so quickly there’s little time to even appreciate the chaotic grouping of the many CGI animals in each scene. This is especially disheartening when considering the clever concepts. For example, I thought it was interesting how the film shifts focus between what Dolittle hears and what others hear—but before anything interesting can be developed with this concept, we’re already on to another subplot about how he can teach his animal-talking technique to his apprentice.

This film is so bloated that I almost forgot to mention Antonio Banderas is in this film as a weird-looking king, hardly having a moment to come into his own as such a figure. And if I were to tell you the final act Dolittle must complete in getting that MacGuffin fruit, I doubt you’d believe me, even though you can glimpse scenes of it in the trailers.

Dolittle is so diced up into pieces that don’t quite fit together, it’s no wonder Robert Downey Jr. seems to be mumbling half his lines as he strolls through this elaborate mess of a movie. Without much of any grounding, it’s an experience that comes off more like watching one of those clunky edits on YouTube, committed to showing only the animal parts of the movie and none of those more emotional moments that tie the picture together. There’s a great story buried within this script, but it seems that little of it made it to the screen.

At least there weren’t any animal poop jokes. There’s still a fart joke, of course, but one can’t expect such a film to be completely devoid of the juvenile.