Dr. Dolittle

This is really an everage run of the mill kids movie based losely on the the Doctor Dolittle film. Eddie Murphy plays the doctor who finds that he can comminicate with all animals.This leads to every type of animal coming to him for help for their medical problems. The Special affects are not very special but i'm sure a lot of kids would love this film. There are a few funny one liners that will go straight over childrens heads and that are quite funny but all in all this film is just plain OK. 6 out of 10.

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.

`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.

Doctor Dolittle (1998)

I was surprised to see this movie got such a low rating—it's not so bad. Oh, for sure it's not so great, either. But Eddie Murphy alone makes it something worth watching (he's one of the few perfect-pitch comedians out there). And the story, a 1920 classic for children, is something of its own.

What falls apart is the slightly pushy sentimentalism and the generally mediocre secondary cast. That might be enough to push it into mediocrity, for sure, but it's not meant to be a deep classic, and it plays with the story nicely.

That story is not just about a doctor (of the human type) who can hear animals talking. It's more about how society condemns hims and tries to help him with psycho-care. His bland wife (with the gorgeous eyes that get overplayed) is typical of his "friends," all nice people with distractions and no time for the possibility that he might, in fact, hear animals talk.

The talking animals are of course great fun, from the rats to the tiger. This is the part of the movie that is meant to appeal across the board, and it does, including its good special effects. The feeling of family, not dysfunctional, is another bit of warmth, not to mention that the family is African American, a nice twist on the original story based on an English doctor.

And though the movie was not liked by critics, it has made a third of a billion dollars, which speaks for itself. Not a masterpiece, and not even a classic, it still has wonderful aspects including a very wonderful basic concept.

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