Doctor Dolittle was the central character to a series of books starting all the way back in the early 1920s following a physician who seems to have the ability to talk to animals. With a silly but idea opening concept, the series branched out into several different books that people seemed to enjoy, which also lead to various film versions being made with the more negatively famous one being the Eddie Murphy film version, which failed to please both critics and adults worldwide. Since the book series is surprisingly packed with content and riding more than just it is cute concept, making a movie about it would be tricky, but it could open itself up to a bucket load of endless new possibilities with such an open concept. Unfortunately, it seems that said possibilities always seem to end at the blandest and safest story directions, case in point the new 2020 film version, Dolittle. In the very familiar country of England, a young boy weirdly named Stubbins (played by Harry Collet) comes across a hermit Dr Dolittle (played by Robert Downey Junior). He has been summoned by the Queen of England who is slowly dying and needs him to retrieve a rare fruit that will apparently heal her. The doctor along with the boy and a large group of animal talking companions travel across the sea to reach this mysterious fruit, all the while an evil villain plots in the background to steal the crown away. Being a massive failure in the critical department, this reboot to the Doctor Dolittle name seems to have only alienated people away from what could have been a simple charming film. With an incoherent messy story, pointless/annoying/poorly acted characters and incredibly stale old-fashioned humor, this brought the story back in a rather sloppy way.

From an outsiders perspective, the books may come across as one-note picture books or simple fairy tales, but that actually proves to be the exact opposite with a lot of talking about house trades and dramatic adventures and stuff that seems a bit too complicated for an idea that would work best in a smaller format. This movie switches the problem in that the story is overtly paper-thin and extremely mundane even for this premise. It’s every single traveling movie expect the sidekicks are animals instead of people, with nothing exciting or new added on to make it unique. The movie doesn’t seem to be based on any of the stories, so it could have done whatever it wanted, but instead took what was arguably a bit too extreme and made it too simplistic. The movie has such an odd pace to it that scenes seem to come and go without rhyme or reason and the movie feigns development through dialogue rather than physically showing it. The narrative is so loose that moments happen without context and leave just as quickly, so its that horribly blend of being sloppily unfocused and horribly predictable. It feels incredibly shallow and lacking any sense of simple charm that the books seemed to grab people with. Thankfully even though the movie is horribly written and bland to boot, its not as packed with painful pop culture references and potty humor as expected, although there is still a fair amount in it and it’s not like its replaced with anything serviceable or funny.

The characters are all pretty stale and fall into the ranks of bland one-dimensional archetypes, but if the story was filled with enough creativity and wonder, that could have worked, unfortunately it does not. Dolittle is a very boring character if not annoying in moments, the kids are boring generic kids, all the animals have tiny splashes of character, but nothing that special, and the villain is about as one-note and silly as stories like these get. Most of the performances in the movie don’t feel like they necessarily lack passion, but rather direction and good material. The biggest and harshest example of this is Robert Downey in the lead role. Its hard to imagine if it’s the director’s fault or if it’s just the material, but he really doesn’t work in this movie. His delivery is incomprehensible and incredibly awkward to listen to, it always feels a touch off beat and never feels genuine, the jokes never work, and it takes a reasonably talented actor and makes it feels like he’s an inexperienced newcomer. Its liking watching Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, it’s hard to imagine that this performance comes from a good actor. The main kids are pretty monotone and boring, and Michael Sheen as the villain is only unintentionally funny in moments with how over-the-top silly, he’s getting in moments. Strangely enough most of the voice actors for the animals are probably the only performances that almost feel like if they had any normal material to work with, it could maybe work. Practically all of them at least act there parts passably, but that’s more so by this movie’s standards and mainly because there’s a lot of stars in this movie; Emma Thompson, Tom Holland, Octavia Spencer, Rami Malek, Ralph Fiennes, Selena Gomez, Frances De La Tour, these are good people given very little to work with. Now some of the characters seem pointless in the overall movie, and even some characters, like the squirrel played by Craig Robinson gets old really quick, most of the others feel like if the jokes being told were good, they could have been fine. Emma Thompson is fine as the narrator, Rami Malek as the Gorilla is weird but harmless enough, John Cena does a good enough job as the Polar Bear, and there’s even a genuinely funny scene involving a tiger played by Ralph Fiennes, even if that ends with a crotch shot. Even a cast as big as this couldn’t save this garbage material.

If there is anything in this movie that predates the creation of the character itself, it is the humor in this movie. These jokes are some of the most overused, stalest, safest, most boringly jokes even by kids’ movie standards. Next to none get any short of a laugh, and even others would only get one because of disbelief that it is even being told. As previously mentioned, there is not as much dated stuff as previously thought, its more so that nothing leaves a mark in general so when a comedy fails at being funny, there’s very little left to watch for especially considering the horribly weak story. The effects are actually one of the few things that does not really have much of a negative backing around it. Its hard to say that they look genuinely realistic, but for a silly goofy comedy, they look expressive and colorful enough that they work in this style of movie, even if the design on most of them either shout toys or annoying comic relief in bad animated movies. The score done by Danny Elfman is pretty much wasted as it barely stands out and seems pretty forgettable for a piece done by such a talented composer.

Dolittle seems to have never fully worked on the big screen previously, and it seems that the trend has not stopped yet. This movie puts a damper on any future plans for another film and starts Robert Downey Junior’s nega-Marvel acting life off to a bad start. All of these talented actors will definitely go on to better stuff later on, but this movie will definitely not be on their resumes. Dolittle was a complicated book series but became a disappointedly bland film that kids may get through fine enough, but adults will find it dubious to sit through. There are still far worse comedies out there and in its defence, Dolittle has always left so little impact that it’s hard to imagine what could have come from movie made out of the character, but it is a special kind of awful that is more confusing to watch rather than get mad at. Not worth a watch, this is a creature that is not worth listening too. When the funniest joke in the movie is a fly getting eaten, you know that something is terribly wrong.