IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT: DOLITTLE

Currently we are in a world without access to the cinema, most of the theaters around the world are closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. I, as an avid theater goer, has found a new way to continue my moviegoing experience. So IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT, will bring you reviews from another cinematic avenue, REDBOX.

For the first edition of IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT, is Dolittle starring Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Dolittle, one of the classic film characters played by the likes of Rex Harrison and Eddie Murphy. But unfortunately, neither film developed into the absolute mess that Dolittle turned out to be.

In the film, Dolittle while living in seclusion in the sanctuary that was given to him by the Queen of England with his animal friends following the passing of his adventurer wife. Dolittle is brought back into the world, after hearing the news from Lady Rose (Carmel Laniado) that the Queen has become gratefully ill. Dolittle joined by his new apprentice, Tommy Stubbins (Harry Collett), and his army of animal companions sets out on a quest to find a rare fruit in an uncharted territory that his wife lost her life to find.

While on the journey, Dolittle and his crew face adversity from the treacherous Dr. Blair Mudfly, (Michael Sheen), who seeks to find the fruit before Dolittle to one up his long-time rival and prevent the saving of the queen's life. Now in reference to Sheen, I have always thought Sheen was a great actor, especially from the Underworld franchise, but this villain character was a confusing mix of humor, aggression and bewilderment, that you don’t whether to jeer or laugh along with him.

This movie as a whole really didn’t know what direction to go, does it live up to the fantasy genre, yes. Is it a comedy, no, sure there is comedic elements, but very childish comedic scenes. The dialogue in the film was very choppy as well, to go with such a rushed story with minimal progression. And for Downey, I may have been the only viewer that noticed, Downey’s character seemed to have multiple accents, even showing familiar Sherlock Holmes dialect and mannerisms.

Now I'll be honest, I'm a huge Robert Downey Jr. fan, I wanted to see this movie in the theater but missed out. After seeing it through Redbox, I'm glad I missed it. I commend Downey for giving his all to this work, as both the lead and executive producer, but for someone to come off the Marvel series and his first movie was this, has to be one of the worst film transitions in history. I'll even go as far as saying I would have preferred Eddie Murphy in the role although the series went an unnecessary three movies, none of them were as far-fetched and over the top as this movie.

The one saving grace of the movie to me was the animal voices that were cast, for a modern fantasy version of the film, the cast had to be star studded highlighted by such talents as Emma Thompson (Polly), John Cena (Yoshi), Tom Holland (Jip), Kumail Nanjani (Plympton), Selena Gomez (Betsy), Ralph Fiennes (Barry) and recent Academy Award winner Rami Malek (CheChe).

The stand-out characters by far was Polly who played Dolittle’s voice of reason, CheChe who is Dolittle’s second at arms and is the world’s most timid silverback gorilla and the friendship that developed between Yoshi and Plympton.

So where would I rank Dolittle, according to box office numbers, the film has garnered over $100 million dollars in losses despite being the third highest grossing film of the year so far. I hate to say it’s one of the worst movies, I have seen to date, especially for a RDJ movie, but man this defines the word, “Flop.”

So, for my first edition of IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT, out of a possible five reels, I would give DOLITTLE, 1 out of 5.