When you’re someone who’s railed against the cinematic
plague that is family films about talking animals for as long as I have,
reviews like this are inevitable. A look at what can be considered the initial
harbinger for the favourite kid-pleasing gimmick of hacks around the world:
Doctor Dolittle.
Big-budget adaptations of the original series of books are…
basically cursed, from what I can tell. From the hype disaster of the 1967
version with Rex Harrison, to the admittedly decent Eddie Murphy version (that
would end up spawning a league of straight-to-video sequels, making whatever
merit its beginning had pretty much moot), this isn’t a story known for doing
well at the box office. And fresh off of his linchpin performance in what is
now the highest-grossing film of all time, Robert Downey Jr. is the latest to
try his hand at this infamous character. And it seems like we have somehow
reached a new low for this property.
