DOLITTLE IS A DOG’S DINNER

Despite a who’s who of Hollywood royalty, this remake’s a furry failure

THE very name Dolittle evokes different images for different people. Some might think of Hugh Lofting’s books about the Victorian doctor who could converse with animals.

Others recall Rex Harrison and his pushmi-pullyu in the 1967 musical adaptation, or Eddie Murphy goofing about in the 1998 and 2001 versions.

Well, now here’s Robert Downey Jr to give the name a whole new resonance, as in ‘Dolittle business at the box office’. Rather like the original picture, it seems destined to be a catastrophic commercial flop.

In fairness to 1967’s Doctor Dolittle, despite the fact that it almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox, it was an amiable enough film, and these days has a certain dated charm.

This version has as much charm as a sheep has Leaving Certs. In fact, its lack of charm almost counts as an achievement, given a cast led by Downey, with Jim Broadbent and Antonio Banderas in supporting roles. Emma Thompson and Ralph Fiennes also lend their voices. With all that talent, and a production budget estimated at $175 million, it has to work hard to fail.

Downey plays Dr John Dolittle as a 19th-century Welshman, and you would think, judging by the shrieking criticism of his accent, that he deserves to be flogged all round the Valleys with leeks and daffodils.

In truth, it’s not that bad. Yes, there are times when it seems to meander from Cardiff to California and back again by way of Calcutta. And yes, he only seems to be able to deliver his Welsh vowels in a kind of mutter, which at times appears to have been badly dubbed.

But the problem with his performance is not the voice — it’s the complete absence, for want of a better word, of oomph. Downey is generally an actor with a rather challenging excess of oomph, so where it’s gone, who can say? Perhaps a camel ate it.

We first meet him as a recluse, hiding behind a huge, unkempt beard and mourning his lovely wife, who has died in a storm at sea. His rambling manor house in the English countryside is a sanctuary for animals, with whom he spends his days communing. He plays chess with a gorilla (voiced by Rami Malek) — that sort of thing.

Then comes an unwelcome human intrusion, with the arrival of a boy called Tommy Stubbins (Harry Collett). Tommy needs Dolittle’s help, having accidentally shot a squirrel called Kevin (giving incongruous names to animals is one of the more desperate ways in which this film tries to elicit laughs; Fiennes voices a tiger named Barry).

Coincidentally, it’s not just Tommy who needs Dolittle’s help, but also the ailing young Queen Victoria (a bizarre waste of the extravagantly gifted Jessie Buckley, who spends most of the movie in bed, quietly dying).

The Queen has sent one of her ladies-in-waiting, Lady Rose (Carmel Laniado), to summon Dolittle to Buckingham Palace.

Encouraged to go by his pushy parrot Polynesia (Thompson), who also acts as narrator, he decides that she has been poisoned, quite possibly by her dastardly doctor, Blair Mudfly (Michael Sheen in full pantomime villain mode), or a creepy courtier (Broadbent). Or both.

Dolittle realises that the only known antidote to the poison is the fruit of the Eden tree, which grows in a far-away land.

The incentive is not just seeing his sovereign restored to health, but also the safeguarding of Dolittle Manor, so off he sets with