‘Dolittle’ as bad as ‘Cats’ say critics
‘Avengers’ star Robert Downey Jr plays the doctor in the latest adaptation of Hugh Lofting’s fairy tale
It’s open season on the animals and human star of Dolittle, the latest unfortunate movie adaptation of Hugh Lofting’s beloved fairy tale, starring Robert Downey Jr. Reviews are in for Universal’s entry to the Doctor Dolittle canon, and they are, at best, unfavourable. At worst, they are downright scathing.
No one — not Oscar nominee Downey, or even his puppy-like Marvel partner, Tom Holland — was safe from the deluge of criticism unleashed on writer-director Stephen Gaghan’s project, akin to the cruel reception for the studio’s other recent animal misadventure, Cats.
And that comparison was not lost on those unlucky enough to get an early peek at the film.
“Dolittle is a more harmless and whimsical family entertainment, less likely to provoke nightmares than the digitally furred felines of Tom Hooper’s Andrew Lloyd Webber adaptation,” wrote Jake Coyle of the Associated Press. “But, just the same, the two films together could
be the worst setback for animalia since global warming, or at least Howard the Duck.”
The Tribune News Service’s Katie Walsh was especially harsh, finding no redeemable qualities whatsoever in the cinematic follow-up to the 1998 Eddie Murphy saga and the equally “cursed endeavour” that was the 1967 version featuring Rex Harrison.
“Do little? They could not have done less,” Walsh wrote. “The only appropriate adjective for this Dolittle is ‘hasty.’ Everything feels slapdash and halfrendered; the plot proceeds in a fashion that could be described only as perfunctory. Everyone on screen seems to be in a stumbling daze, especially Downey as the frazzle-dazzled doctor. You’ll spend most of the movie wondering about the mysterious provenance of his half-Irish, half-Scottish accent and the rest of the time wondering if they actually dubbed his voice along with the rest of the animals.”
In a departure from his performance in Avengers: Endgame — which sparked a fan-fronted Oscars campaign for the Iron Man star — Downey seemed to struggle in his first role since retiring from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Most reviewers particularly took issue with the doctor’s accent — a capital-C Choice that ultimately condemned any small chance he had to be taken seriously in a kids movie stuffed with talking animals.
In a sort of back-handed compliment to its lead, several lamented the venture as a criminal waste of talent.
“So ... we have the brilliant Stephen Gaghan writing and directing a film starring the genius Robert Downey Jr — AND IT’S A DAMN DOLITTLE MOVIE?” wrote Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times. “We have the first serious contender for Wasted Opportunity of the Decade.”
“No doctor can cure what ails this Dolittle,” wrote the Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy. “The oddly diffident star and executive producer Robert Downey Jr never finds the power-supplying third rail needed to energise a tale that fails to make a real case for being reinterpreted; you can practically hear little kids whining, ‘Mommy, Daddy, can we go now?’”