Robert Downey Jr. spends 101 minutes trying to charm a talking animal, and the film around him keeps getting in the way. Dolittle wants to be a family adventure about a man who speaks to beasts, but it keeps forgetting why anyone should care. The result is a bloated, unfunny mess that wastes a great cast on a script that doesn’t know what it’s selling.
Trailer, via Universal Pictures.
Dolittle’s Retreat
Dr. John Dolittle starts the film as a recluse, a Welsh veterinarian who retreated from society after his wife Lily died at sea. He lives in seclusion at Dolittle Manor, surrounded by his menagerie of exotic animals. That setup is promising. A man who talks to beasts should be funny, moving, or both. Instead, the film treats his isolation as a plot device rather than a character trait.
When the young queen falls gravely ill, Dolittle is forced to set sail on an adventure to a mythical island in search of a cure. The problem is that we never feel invested in his reluctance. The film tells us he’s a hermit, but it doesn’t show us why. We get a brief montage of his wife’s death, but the grief never lands. The doctor’s wit and courage are supposed to return on the journey, but they’re absent from the starting line.
Tommy Stubbins and the Macaw’s Plan
Harry Collett plays Tommy Stubbins, a young animal lover who accidentally wounds a red squirrel named Kevin. Tommy finds himself led to Dolittle’s home by Poly the macaw, who hopes the doctor’s arrival will help him reconnect with humans. This is the film’s best idea, and it’s buried under a pile of exposition.
Tommy meets Queen Victoria’s maid of honor Lady Rose, who summons Dolittle to help the queen. Tending to Kevin, Dolittle agrees to see Victoria, realizing he will lose his home to the Treasury if the queen dies. That’s a solid hook. But the film forgets it almost immediately.
At Buckingham Palace, Dolittle finds Victoria being treated by his lifelong rival, Dr. Blair Müdfly, in the presence of Lord Thomas Badgley. He discovers the queen has been poisoned with nightshade and can only be cured by the magical fruit of the Eden Tree. The stakes are there, but the setup is rushed. The audience barely gets to know the characters before the plot moves on.
The Voices and the Animals
The supporting cast is a star-studded disaster. Antonio Banderas plays King Rassouli, Michael Sheen plays Dr. Blair Müdfly, and Jim Broadbent plays Lord Thomas Badgley. They’re all in live-action roles, which means the film is constantly shifting between human actors and CGI animals. It’s a jarring tonal shift that never settles.
Emma Thompson voices Poly the macaw, Rami Malek voices Chee-Chee the gorilla, John Cena voices Yoshi the polar bear, Kumail Nanjiani voices Plimpton the ostrich, Craig Robinson voices Kevin the squirrel, and Ralph Fiennes voices Barry. Octavia Spencer, Tom Holland, Selena Gomez, and Marion Cotillard also voice an array of creatures. That’s a lot of talent. None of it is used well.
The animation is fine. The creatures look good. But the voices are placed over them without any chemistry. The animals don’t talk to each other, they talk to the humans. The humans don’t talk to each other, they talk to the animals. It’s a two-way street of awkwardness.
The Quest and the Ship
Leaving Jip the Irish Wolfhound and stick insect Styx to guard the queen, Dolittle mounts an expedition of various animals, including Chee-Chee, Yoshi, and Plimpton. He refuses to take Tommy. Poly sends Betsy the giraffe and Tutu the fox to bring Tommy aboard Dolittle’s ship, convincing the doctor to accept his help.
That’s a promising sequence. A reluctant hero, a determined sidekick, a crew of talking animals. It could work. It doesn’t. The pacing drags. The jokes fall flat. The stakes keep shifting. One moment Dolittle is racing to save the queen, the next he’s fighting off a warship. The film can’t decide what kind of movie it is.
Lord Badgley plots to seize the throne for himself and sends Müdfly to stop Dolittle’s quest. Dolittle enlists the help of a whale to escape Müdfly and the warship HMS Britannia. Dolittle is saved from drowning by Tommy, who begins to learn to talk to animals. That’s a nice callback to the earlier setup, but it arrives too late. By the time the film remembers its own premise, it’s already running out of time.
The Island and the Map
Dolittle and Tommy infiltrate the bandit island of Monteverde to steal the only map to the Eden Tree, contained in Lily’s journal. That’s the climax the film needs. It brings together the quest, the villains, and the lost wife. But the execution is a disaster. The island is a generic pirate hideout. The bandits are cartoonish. The map is a device that exists only to move the plot forward.
The film’s final act is a series of chases, battles, and escapes that add nothing to the story. The villain is never truly threatening. The hero is never truly in danger. The comedy is never truly funny. It’s a parade of set pieces that don’t connect.
The Numbers
- Director: Stephen Gaghan
- Screenplay: Stephen Gaghan, Dan Gregor, Doug Mand, Thomas Shepherd
- Based on the title character created by Hugh Lofting
- Second Doctor Dolittle book: The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922)
- Lead: Robert Downey Jr.
- Supporting cast: Antonio Banderas, Michael Sheen, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson, Rami Malek, John Cena, Kumail Nanjiani, Craig Robinson, Ralph Fiennes
- Animation studio: Universal Pictures
- Release: Theatrical in the United States
- Runtime: 101 minutes
The Verdict
Dolittle is a failure on almost every level. The script is thin. The direction is uneven. The jokes land with a thud. The pacing is a mess. The voice work is wasted. The animation is competent but unremarkable. The whole enterprise feels like a cash grab, a franchise starter that never got the attention it needed.
The film is the third adaptation of the character, after the 1967 musical Doctor Dolittle starring Rex Harrison and the 1998–2009 Dr. Dolittle film series starring Eddie Murphy. That history should have given this version a sense of responsibility. Instead, it looks like a reboot that didn’t bother to learn from the past.
The only thing the film gets right is its ambition. It wants to be a big, sprawling adventure with talking animals, a kidnapped queen, and a reluctant hero. It just doesn’t have the tools to deliver. The cast is phenomenal. The concept is charming. The execution is a disaster.
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