Dolittle Movie doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s trying to be like Lord of the Rings and on the other trying to be treasure island or something. The movie lost me when the SPOILERS dragon appeared. The plot was mediocre: as a kids magical fantasy adventure movie would be.
But by having a narrator type of character to narrate parts of the movie, it takes away the magic of the process of adventurous. It’s sort of breaking the rule of “Show don’t tell”. I really wish they could show more of the adventure at sea and really doing some adventuring.
The Collet boy character (whose name is not catchy nor memorable at all) is kinda useless. He is just there for plot convenience and for the younger audience members I guess. Lady Rose’s actor’s acting is not that great: it’s like she’s trying to be Heromine or something. Lastly, Robert Downey Jr’s voice often gives me a feeling like it was dubbed over. It was very distracting.
However, I really like the idea and story of Dolittle Movie and enjoy a lot of the world building of the movie like the whale pulling the ship thing. Yet it lost a lot of charm by having mediocre villains, unrewarded plot lines and abrupt character developments like Lily’s dad’s redemption.
To be frank, I can see the appeal to this movie for kids. Nowadays, it’s really rare for this kind of genre. It reminds me of the Narnia movies. But I don’t think this movie is made for me or my type of audience.
Here’s the thing. it’s not terrible, it just lacks spark. robert downey seems bewildered. it’s as if he doesn’t know what movie he’s in. which might be the case. he does make a lot of movies. the animals talk. you know.