Dolittle could have done a lot more

Movie review: Dolittle

Robert Downey Jr. dons Victorian garb and a Welsh accent for his turn as a dotty vet with a particular gift in this grim take on a kid-lit classic that lacks authenticity, despite the realistic creatures.

Dolittle

2/5

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Michael Sheen, Antonio Banderas, Emma Thompson, Jim Broadbent, Harry Collett

Directed by: Stephen Gaghan

Running time: 1 hr 41 mins

Rating: Parental Guidance

Opens wide January 17, 2020

By Katherine Monk

Dolittle does little, indeed. A rather grim reboot of the Hugh Lofting books that once inspired a generation of young people to sing “I can talk to the animals” along with a jaunty Rex Harrison, Stephen Gaghan’s (Syriana, Traffic) 2020 vision features a dour Robert Downey Jr. as the Victorian veterinarian who howls, honks and hoots like the animals, but in this case, also grieves like a human.

In the opening scenes we’re introduced to the character we know and love, only to discover his life story advanced into tragedy: He lost his beloved wife, Lilly, in a shipwreck, and now lives a cloistered life behind the walls of his animal sanctuary, talking only to the furry creatures that surround him. Some are familiar, some not. All are cute. Yet, for all the technology involved, not one of them truly feels authentic.

Sure, they look like the real thing. But it feels like they’re acting. Even the talented Downey Jr. feels like he’s acting, but in his case, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The one-time teen heartthrob has an ability to take the piss out of himself in a lovable self-loathing kind of way. It’s all in his big brown eyes. They penetrate the glittery and gauzy guises we try on, and shred them to dangling threads in a single glance. There’s a reluctant smugness, a tragic sense of knowing just a little bit more than everyone, and waiting with frustration for the moronic masses to catch up to his blistering brain speed.

…For all the technology involved, not one of the animals truly feels authentic…. Sure, they look like the real thing. But it feels like they’re acting.

It worked well for the role of genius inventor Tony Stark in the Marvel-verse, and he translates the very same gift for subdued arrogance in the part of Dr. John Dolittle, a genius naturalist, scientist, linguist and animal doctor who prefers the company of four-legged or feathered friends.

Downey plays him as a Welshman with a natural distrust for anything formal or feigned, and happily embraces the life of a hermit until he’s forced out of his shell by a young boy named Stubbins (Harry Collett). The outcast son of a hunter, Stubbins fails to kill his first trophy, and ends up taking an injured squirrel to the ivy-covered walls of the Dolittle mansion.

The meeting, enabled by the meddling Polly the parrot (Emma Thompson), turns into a mentorship — as well as a convenient plot device to include characters that kids can actually relate to. Not that a clinically depressed, hygiene-compromised, cynical adult isn’t someone kids will fall in love with, but the addition of Stubbins and the young Lady Rose (Carmel Laniado)— a friend of the ailing Queen Victoria (Jessie Buckley) — ensure there’s going to be a safe path through the thicket of adult themes.

Dolittle tries to balance the Victorian sensibilities of the original books with a hint of hipster modernism by steeping the whole thing in the doctor’s bag of wise-cracking Weltschmerz. Downey plays him with enough earnestness of heart that his noted misanthropy is never agonizing, but the script fails to establish a steady arc for any character — not even the animals — which makes so much of what we see feel like a distraction instead of a needed scene.

Because the human actors are so much fun to watch, with Michael Sheen and Antonio Banderas putting on their bad-boy boxers as moustache-twirling villains, these distractions pull us closer to the clunking plot line. The animals, however, tend to feel like hammy clutter who literally chew the scenery. How creatures that look so real could feel so fake has everything to do with the script, because where the animals are supposed to give us clear and pure insight into how artificial humans can be, they simply echo our human foibles. They’re scripted the way you’d script a person, which defeats the conceit of talking to animals in the first place.

The animals, however, tend to feel like hammy clutter who literally chew the scenery.

Hugh Lofting wrote the Doctor Dolittle stories from the trenches during the First World War. They were for his children, but they were framed by the insane horrors humans inflict on one another. Sure, they were loved by adults as well, but the whole mission was to assure, entertain and enlighten children. I had no idea what audience Dolittle was trying to please with its mix of computer-generated, zoological slapstick and millennial malaise, but it didn’t enchant my inner child, nor did it amuse my somewhat grown-up self.

Like so many movies that seem to hit the big screen seeking maximum revenues, the content feels machined and predictable, an assembly of proven parts that can be screwed together with money and marketing to reach a projected target at the box-office.

Who doesn’t want to see Robert Downey Jr. return as a brilliant scientist seeking justice? Throw in a few memories of Sherlock Holmes and a flash of regurgitated Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Swallow, and Dolittle seems like a desirable round of deja-vu.

Like so many movies that seem to hit the big screen seeking maximum revenues, the content feels machined and predictable, an assembly of proven parts that can be screwed together with money and marketing to reach a projected target at the box-office.

Yet, in the hands of the man who made Syriana and Traffic, Dolittle loses these upbeat cues and takes a downward beat. We get lost in the twisted narrative that has the animals turn into an unlikely posse to save a queen, but we never feel the noose of suspense. The movie is such  tangle, it doesn’t hold us as much as pull us along; ambivalent lint trapped by the forces of static cling: Humans who want to hum “….talk to the animals, talk to the animals” in a state of willful nostalgia, ready to surrender all sense of disbelief for a brief moment of blissful ignorance.

Dolittle didn’t have to do much. So the little it accomplishes thanks to Downey and the cast is worthy of note, if not a fond memory.

@katherinemonk

To read more movie reviews by Katherine Monk, check out the Ex-Press archive or sample career work at Rotten Tomatoes.
THE EX-PRESS January 17, 2020

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Review: Dolittle

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Summary

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Despite Robert Downey Jr.’s hound dog appeal, this take on Hugh Lofting’s stories about a vet who can talk to the animals lacks originality, humour and above all, a sense of authenticity. The animals feel like hammy sidekicks who literally chew the scenery, and the script fails to establish a single character arc that makes us care. We’re simply pulled along by the forces of static cling: willful nostalgia. -- Katherine Monk

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