Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
After losing his wife seven years earlier, the eccentric Dr. John Dolittle, famed doctor and veterinarian of Queen Victoria’s England, hermits himself away behind the high walls of Dolittle Manor with only his menagerie of exotic animals for company. But when the young queen falls gravely ill, a reluctant Dolittle is forced to set sail on an epic adventure to a mythical island in search of a cure, regaining his wit and courage as he crosses old adversaries and discovers wondrous creatures.
Dolittle (2020) is a muddled adaptation that squanders a rich source material. The plot is generic and episodic, lacking coherent narrative drive. Robert Downey Jr.'s eccentric performance is oddly pitched and never fully lands, while the supporting cast (largely voice work) is uneven. The CGI visuals are competent and occasionally colorful but not especially distinctive. The concept of talking animals in Victorian England has been done before and this iteration adds little new, feeling derivative of prior Dolittle iterations and generic family adventure films. The ending resolves things hastily and unsatisfyingly, with a particularly notorious dragon intestine sequence that feels tonally bizarre rather than inventively playful.