Dr. Dolittle

Continuing my plan to watch every Eddie Murphy movie in order, I come to Doctor Doolittle (1998)

Plot In A Paragraph: A doctor discovers he can talk to animals.

Again I watched this one with my girlfriends daughter. Again we had fun watching it. I'm actually amazed at the rating this got, due to some of its humour. Kids tend to love bodily function humour, and she is no exception. I have not decided if I will permanently add it to my collection, but I certainly enjoyed myself, and have worse movies in my collection. All in all, it's a decent family movie.

A few of the animals are voiced by celebs Rocky (Chris Rock) Jacob the Tiger (Albert Brooks) and one of the rats (John Leguizamo) all stand out. Sadly so did the annoying Gilbert Gottfried. Check out a nod to Rocky 3 below.

Dr Doolittle grossed $144 Million at the domestic box office to end the year the 6th highest grossing movie of 1998. Against all odds, Murphy had totally reinvented himself. The brash, vulgar comedian from the early to mid 80's was gone. He was a guy who starred with animals and kids in family friendly movies. Strange to get used to as a fan of his earlier work. But it worked. There's an entire generation that only knows this Murphy. The guy from the family films.

eddie murphy is incredibly funny again. the animals are funnier still. infact the whole thing is so believable and has the magical quality that makes a kids' movie so endearign.

so why the low rating? cos its so very crude!!! too crude for a kids & family movie. even when u laugh, u feel guilty about it, esp. when kids are around.

heres a good story gone bad, sadly part 2 is worse. would have been a brilliant movie in the hands of disney.

maybe disney should be given the monopoly on kids' movies on a platter. or maybe along with dreamworks, theyve been real good too, so far :) 20th century fox should stick catering to adults.

an average 5

I have seen a fair few comparisons to the 1967 film with Rex Harrison, now I saw the 1967 film as a kid and kind of liked it but it is something I need to re-watch. This film is basically a remake, minus the songs, and while it isn't brilliant and no masterpiece in any shape or form, it does have its good things. The film's plot is very slight, and the script has its weak spots while having some funny ones as well. And there is sometimes uneven pacing and direction. But it is nicely filmed, and the music is nice enough. The acting was also pretty good. Eddie Murphy does a serviceable job as John Dolittle, his role is not really like the ones he had in Beverly Hills Cop or Trading Places which also happens to two of his better movies, but he does well, and I will say he has been worse and he's been in worse films too. Kyla Pratt looks lovely and acts nicely as Maya, and Ossie Davis is good as well. The voice cast carry the picture as the animals who (along with the above average effects) steal the show. Consisting of the likes of Garry Shandling, John Leguizamo and Gilbert Gottfried they do great jobs, however Oliver Platt and Peter Boyle have little to do. Overall, a nice watch but nothing exceptional. 6/10 Bethany Cox

John Dolittle was a worrying child – his father always caught him pretending to talk to animals and eventually had to get him to stop it. As an adult, his gift is long forgotten until he hits a dog with his car and hears it talk to him. When he realises that he is not going crazy and he can talk to them he is suddenly inundated with animals to treat, his family is falling apart and his business partners think their whole business is at risk.

Eddie Murphy basically rebuild his career around a couple of big comedy remakes which relied on humour and effects. Here the humour consists of good lines and the effects the animatronic animals. The plot is the weakest point of the film and, although it has a basic story, it never really involves or becomes important. Supporting the film then is some funny lines (rather than consistent jokes) from the animal support cast – whether it be main characters (Rodney the hamster) or quick one-liners (`I am Kyser Soze').

The effects are surprisingly ropey – they look good but they don't move naturally and the cuts between the real animals and the puppets are very clear. The support cast basically carry the movie and save it from being pretty dire stuff. Rock, Brooks, MacDonald, Leguizamo, Shandling etc all do good work and their dialogue basically consists of one-liners rather than anything else. Beside this the adult cast look like straight men. Murphy is quite dull and even the likes of Platt and Boyle (who usually do OK in small roles) have little to do.

Overall this is fun to watch simply because of the support cast and the regular sharp lines of dialogue from the animals. However, look for any more than that and you'll be disappointed.

`Doctor Dolittle'. ***. (1998, USA, PG-13, 85 min. Directed by Betty Thomas with Edie Murphy, Ossie Davis, Oliver Platt, Richard Schiff, Kristen Wilson, Kyla Pratt). John Dolittle (Murphy) can talk to the animals and they can talk to him. At least he/they could when he was a kid. His dad thought he was nuts and though the use of an exorcist and some stern fatherly persuasion John looses or suppresses his talent/curse. When we next see John, he is Dr. Dolittle, M.D, happily married, father of two girls. He's a respected partner in a very successful medical practice and is about to become very rich. He and his partners are about to sell to an HMO. Everything seems to be going great until Dr. Dolittle almost gets into a car accident with a dog. A bump on his head brings back the voices. Is he going nuts, are life's stresses too much, or does Dr. John just need to find his inner child?

The rest is a rather silly man-gets-in-touch-with-soul type movie, except for the animals. They have all the good lines. There's the lascivious German shepherd that can't control himself even when he's pleading his reformation on the way to being clipped. The pigeon couple; she's a nag, he's a wimp. There are the quarreling rats, the neurotic terrier, the tiger, and of course Lucky, the dog Dr. Dolittle hit in the car accident. To his credit Murphy let's the animals have their say while he plays straight man to their lines. One other thing about Murphy's acting; Dr. Dolittle is not the least bit comfortable around animals. When Dr. Dolittle has to catch daughter Maya's (Pratt) guinea pig, he holds it in a folded pillow so he doesn't have to touch it. (Having similar feelings about pets, I was amused by Dr. Dolittle's behavior around animals.) What's funny about this is, apparently Murphy wasn't acting. But this all added up to a fun movie. I recommend it.