Ah yes, awards season is upon us. But at a time when Hollywood is busy lauding its best and brightest, we audience-goers are left with perhaps the worst movies of the year. With the major Oscar contenders likely having premiered in the fall and throughout December, late winter and early spring are a horrifying time to be a cinephile. And that, my friends, is why it is the perfect time for this blog. Together, we will endure this scary season of cinema; and we’re starting off post #1 with the latest in major studio flops… Dolittle.
Single-Sentence Synopsis: (SPOILERS!!)
An antisocial physician, following the death of his wife, embarks on a journey that culminates in him literally pulling bag pipes out of a dragon’s asshole in order to save the queen of England.
My Review:
Oi! Dolittle? More like don’t-little. Ha. Okay, that was bad. And yet, I promise you that joke was better than any joke in this movie. In fact, amongst the handful of jokes that actually managed to land, evoking a smattering of chuckles from the audience with which I endured this cinematic trainwreck, I noticed a common theme: bodily functions i.e. flatulence. From a small monkey burping to a massive dragon fart, the timely passing of gas from either end totally killed. So, that should give you an idea of what you can expect from this film. And—hey—I’m not judging. Farts are funny. But when they’re the only form of comedy that’s working for your film, something’s gone awry.
In short, Dolittle struck me as having possibly been made by folks who have never actually seen a movie before… in their lives… but have perhaps had a few explained to them by someone else. I would also say that this same logic applies to Robert Downey Jr.’s Scottish accent (i.e. “Scottish accent? Never heard one! Let me arbitrarily throw in an occasional ‘oi’ and no one will know the difference.). To be fair, following the conclusion of RDJ’s iconic role as Iron Man in last year’s Avengers: End Game, it was always going to be hard to decide what should come next. How could any other character even approach the level of renown or love garnered by his take on Tony Stark? But perhaps the question the actor himself was most concerned with was “how could I find another role that will pay as much money?”. Well, with a $20 million pay-day for his turn as Dr. John Dolittle, it seems like Downey found the answer (Source: https://www.looper.com/175563/heres-how-much-money-robert-downey-jr-is-making-for-dolittle/).
Scoring Rubric: (On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most idiotic)
- Accents- 4/5
- Animation- 3/5
- Jokes- 4/5
- Cast- 1/5 (actually a phenomenal cast… how/why?)
- Farts- 5/5
Overall rating- 3.4/5 (fairly unwatchable, reasonably idiotic)
Who Let These Movies Happen? 
I also saw Dolittle, and can confirm: it’s terrible.
I heard some people try to defend the movie by saying it’s a children’s movie, as if that somehow makes its bad jokes and bad acting forgivable. Up! is also a children’s movie, and that movie is absolutely beautiful. Dolittle is just a mix of nonsense and kinda-cool special effects.
I had a few good laughs from reading your review, especially when you said it’s like the movie’s creators have never seen a movie before lol. I really hope that live-action talking animal movies don’t become more popular – that would be a nightmare!
Loved the review, can’t wait for next week’s entry 🙂
Nick Lopez
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I know right! I’ve actually identified a similar aspect of “children’s movies” to what you’re describing. Here’s my theory: just as with any genre, when a children’s movie is made with the solitary goal of just creating a film for kids to watch, the movie will be shitty pretty much ten times out of ten. It’s when someone has a great idea for a film and the “children’s movie” genre is the right vehicle for that idea that we get brilliant films like Inside Out, Coraline, Spirited Away, Up and so so many more. But more and more recently, it definitely feels like we’re getting the former scenario.
And in regard to your fear of the live-action-talking-animal-movie trend (a fear which I share), let’s hope the live-action Bambi re-make that Disney has in the works isn’t as uninspired as The Lion King, but even more so that it isn’t as horrifyingly bad as Dolittle.
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