Dolittle (2020)
After facing years of setbacks and delays, Robert Downey Jr's Dolittle is finally hitting theaters in which Dr. Dolittle (Robert Downey Jr) has closed himself off from the rest of the world after his love Lily (Kasia Smutniak) tragically dies in an accident at sea. Dolittle wants to stay alone and away from society with just his various animal friends around him, but after the Queen (Jessie Buckley) falls dangerously ill it is up to Dolittle and his animal friends to go on an adventure for a magical fruit which is the only thing that can cure the Queen's illness before she dies. Despite the A+ cast within this movie, after the film finally settled on a January release and had a pretty terrible first trailer it became clear that this was going to be far from the next cinematic classic. Even going in with low expectations, this was a painful film to sit through that surprised with just how badly it handled nearly every part of filmmaking within itself.
The very first thing to stick out in this movie was the visuals, Using CGI to bring these animals to life sounds like a recipe for disaster and honestly, the final product was just gross at times especially in motion. The actual designs are shocking close to realistic but are off just enough to where the animals fall into the uncanny valley not only feeling fake but even upsetting to look at in most scenes. The thing that makes this even worse is the camerawork throughout the film. It is unclear if cinematographer Guillermo Navarro is the one to blame but for some reason with how the film lays out the shot composition, the camera always feels weirdly zoomed in too far often cutting off characters' faces. The perspectives used for shots are also just a bit off for most of the film (mainly being a bit too low) which contributed to the film feeling quite sloppy from a visual perspective.
The story itself is also just bad and uninspired. This has the blandest and most basic conflict mixed with plot elements that make no sense and feel like they are from an unfinished script. For example, it is established that the Queen will die on the same day as a major eclipse which seems like an easy vehicle to put the characters against the clock and create a sense of urgency but the film never tells us when the eclipse is or how much time has passed on the adventure making any point of putting her death on the same day as the eclipse absolutely pointless. The script is also very lazy with its use of exposition which is used as a primary way to move the story along. It is clear that this journey was just too big for what the film actually could do, instead of trimming the journey down, the film decides the best way to handle this is to tell the audience what happens in multiple points rather than showing the audience these events. The comedy is equally as lazy. With very few exceptions the humor in this movie can be broken down into 3 sections, 1-basic physical animal humor, 2-overused animal puns, and 3-overused jokes which have a line changed to make it animal-related. Even with the emotional core that this film tries to have with the grief that Dolittle faces over his late wife, it so ineffectively sets him up as a character that it is hard to even care especially considering it does nothing new with this set up for a character.
The story itself is also just bad and uninspired. This has the blandest and most basic conflict mixed with plot elements that make no sense and feel like they are from an unfinished script. For example, it is established that the Queen will die on the same day as a major eclipse which seems like an easy vehicle to put the characters against the clock and create a sense of urgency but the film never tells us when the eclipse is or how much time has passed on the adventure making any point of putting her death on the same day as the eclipse absolutely pointless. The script is also very lazy with its use of exposition which is used as a primary way to move the story along. It is clear that this journey was just too big for what the film actually could do, instead of trimming the journey down, the film decides the best way to handle this is to tell the audience what happens in multiple points rather than showing the audience these events. The comedy is equally as lazy. With very few exceptions the humor in this movie can be broken down into 3 sections, 1-basic physical animal humor, 2-overused animal puns, and 3-overused jokes which have a line changed to make it animal-related. Even with the emotional core that this film tries to have with the grief that Dolittle faces over his late wife, it so ineffectively sets him up as a character that it is hard to even care especially considering it does nothing new with this set up for a character.
If there was one part of this movie that could have been of actual quality it would be the performances considering the strength of the cast on paper. Sadly even they end up disappointing. Robert Downey Jr gives a truly baffling and bland performance as Dr. Dollitle which constantly feels like a Jack Sparrow wannabe without any of the charisma or good dialogue. The other main live-action performance is that of Harry Collett who plays Tommy Stubbins, a kid who loves animals and is inspired by Dr. Dolittle but not only is Collett's performance as interesting as drying paint but his character is so forgettable I legitimately forgot if he even had a name for the majority of the film. The voice performances are not really bad quality-wise but the issue with having such an iconic voice cast is that when the animals speak it is impossible to separate their voices from who they are in real life. When John Cena speaks for example as the Polar Bear named Yoshi, there was never a moment where I was able to overlook the iconic voice making it felt like the voice was coming from anywhere but the mouth of John Cena. It is hard to blame the actors for this as it is more of a casting choice but it still did ruin any chance for these animals to truly work how they were intended to.
Overall despite never expecting much from Dolittle, what the film ended up being was more painful than anything. This is a dull and uninspired plot with not only a script that feels lazy and unfinished but also not a single other performance that really worked. The only decent part of the film is the production design from Dominic Watkins which has some interesting ideas here and there but overall Dolittle truly was a truly cursed voyage that sadly sunk as soon as it touched the water.
Overall despite never expecting much from Dolittle, what the film ended up being was more painful than anything. This is a dull and uninspired plot with not only a script that feels lazy and unfinished but also not a single other performance that really worked. The only decent part of the film is the production design from Dominic Watkins which has some interesting ideas here and there but overall Dolittle truly was a truly cursed voyage that sadly sunk as soon as it touched the water.