DOLITTLE (2020)

Dr. John Dolittle, a physician who can communicate with animals lives in solitude with is pets after losing his wife, that is until the Queen of England becomes very ill. He and his newly found young apprentice with the help of his exotic pets must all sail to a mysterious island in search of the cure.

POPCORN-O-METER= 6.4

To be very honest it was better than I expected but it was nowhere near perfect. As a Marvel fan I was excited to see Robert Downey Jr.’s first major role since his MCU days. This movie was released before I really started writing reviews and I only saw it recently because of the critical reception it received. Also, because of how bad the critics said it was I don’t think I would’ve seen it if not for the fact that I wanted to review it myself. And after seeing it now I wonder why it got so much hate from the critics because it is really not that bad, maybe I just had low expectations but it should’ve had decent ratings.

The plot of this movie was lacking and you could see the end of the movie from a mile away, I get that kids were the main target audience and they probably didn’t want a very complex story but they could’ve done better in that regard, a story can be good and simple at the same time. I don’t want to give away much about this movie because to be honest there’s nothing much to give away but one thing I was happy about in the story was the fact that his wife wasn’t somehow mysteriously alive in the island. As I was watching it I was hoping they avoided that enticing mistake because a lot of writers would’ve taken such a lazy route.

In terms of casting I there isn’t much to talk about because most of the cast are animals. Robert Downey Jr. did well in a role similar to his role in his Sherlock Holmes movies but not exactly the same. He was using a Welsh accent in this movie which drew some unwarranted criticism, I feel if they had just instructed him to act it exactly the way he did Sherlock Holmes it’d have been better but it’s just my opinion though. The voice actors were great and it ought to be with such a star studded cast including Tom Holland, Selena Gomez, John Cena to name a few. The visual effects team also did a very good job especially with the animals who looked very realistic and with a budget of about 175 million USD these were some of the few aspects in which they got their money’s worth.

Downey Jr. took most of the blame for the movie flopping and I know it’s mostly because he personally requested that he wanted a Dolittle movie but I don’t think you can blame an actor for a movie flopping especially if they didn’t do bad in the movie. What baffles me though is that he could’ve requested any role in any franchise anywhere in the world and would’ve got it because this was fresh of the back of his selfless death to save the world in what is now the biggest Box Office movie of all time, so why this role? He could’ve taken a role in a movie that was safer and less of an experiment, because a lot of critics would definitely have something to say in his first movie since playing Iron-Man but he decided to take this one anyway I don’t think he should be blamed for the movie flopping though.

Finally, this movie isn’t all that bad and it would definitely keep the younger ones interested, it has some funny moments and you should definitely give it a try. Who knows? You might just like it.