I can never understand why Hollywood is obsessed with making films based on the "Dr. Dolittle" character, since it provides them with a failure one way or another. The 1967 film, although nominated for numerous awards in the Oscars and even winning two of them, was a box office bomb and wasn't really beloved as a film alone, due to the lengthy runtime and blending of multiple books. The 2020 Robert Downey Jr. reboot is also known for not being a costly box office bomb, but a contender for one of the worst films of the year. However, the most successful and most widely-known version of Dr. Dolittle is the 1998 version, which practically ignores the books and turns the character more into comedy than adventure. In this installment, Dolittle is an eccentric, workaholic doctor who has forgotten about his gift to talk to animals ever since he was a kid. One day though after nearly running over a stray dog, his gift suddenly reemerges, which the animal kingdom has started to learn of and visit the doctor as they too require medical attention of their own that only Dolittle can understand, which causes friction between him and the people around him as his behaviour makes him look insane. The story is clearly the weakest element of the film, since there really isn't one. Even if you can describe the story, the movie has such an unnaturally fast pace that it pinballs the audience from plot point to plot point to character to character. Dolittle goes from freaking out about his gift to immediately helping the animals to getting stuck in a mental institution and more. The film isn't that long, but the pacing is cranked to override for whatever reason. The pacing also attempts to deliver a fast pace amount of jokes, which are typically juvenile and unfunny. I won't lie though that there are a few good laughs in the film, but most of them either centre around toilet humour, silly quotes, or referencing famous actors and movies, which is just bizarre and mind-boggling choices rather than laugh-out loud golden moments.
It's weird to say if Eddie Murphy's performance is good or bad in this film. He's clearly overacting and the personality and character motivations of the character is all over the place, but Murphy is just having way too much fun to the point that I will let it slide. However, the rest of the human characters, especially the family, are just generic and standard. I will say that the acting from them isn't bad, with the child actors doing a decent job to boot, but their characters are typical for this cliche narrative. It doesn't help that Murphy himself is also involved with films using that same family model that are just as bad from "The Haunted Mansion" to "A Thousand Words". The animals are essentially all comic relief. There are some that get more screen-time such as the stray-turned best friend, Lucky, and the tiger Jake who gets involved in the plot due to his unknown pain, but they are still all just there to keep kids entertained. It doesn't help that outside of Lucky, Jake, and Rodney the pet guinea pig, the other animals seem to practically harass Dolittle throughout the film as they cause more trouble than the ones that Dolittle remedies to begin with. So, outside of Dolittle himself which is only saved by Murphy's charisma, the cast of characters is pretty bland.
Betty Thomas's directing credits aren't exactly good to say the least as her films aren't known for their critical acclaim. Thomas isn't a bad director per se, but she's very standard. Although the setting of San Fransisco, sets and lighting are rather decently portrayed, the cinematography by Oscar-winning Russell Boyd is flat and the score by Richard Gibbs is so generic that only the end credit song reached my memory by the time I stopped watching. The editing is just awful in its own regard that it practically derails the film in its own right. Because the pace of the film is way too fast, scenes kind of just happen and move on rapidly. As for the visual effects, they're fine for what they are. The digital editing of the animals and the green-screen of them with Dolittle work, but not a lot of the animals were onscreen. That's mainly because during production, Murphy didn't want to do scenes with live animals out of utter fear, which makes it strange for the choice to give him the role rather than someone else. The puppetry is also decent as they on occasion pass for the animal role. Overall, the filmmaking is average and uninspired with the editing being a horrible take-away.
"Dr. Dolittle" rests between harmless kids flick to an awful waste of time. While there was an occasional laugh, Murphy's performance is fun to watch regardless if it's good or not, Thomas's directing is decent for what it is, and the effects for the animals are decent, everything is either mediocre or straight-up bad. The story is non-existent and goes all over the place, the humour is mostly painfully unfunny butt jokes and references, the rest of the human characters are just generic templates from other 90's cliches, the animal sidekicks are basically annoying comic relief, bland cinematography, forgettable score, and editing that single-handedly destroys the film. If you're with a kid, it might make them entertained enough, but by yourself, it does go in a level of cringe that rivals the 2020 film. This is better as it does stick to what it is, an average 90's kids film, but that doesn't really give it a pass of quality overall.
Verdict: 3.5/10. Pretty bad, despite a few decent elements. At least it's better than Robert Downey Jr. imitating Jack Sparrow.
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