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Dolittle

2020

Stephen Gaghan

Robert Downey Jr., Antonio Banderas, Michael Sheen, Jim Broadbent ...

4.6

4,135

Fantasy. Adventure. Comedy Seven years after his wife’s death, the eccentric John Dolittle (Robert Downey Jr.), famed doctor and veterinarian in Victorian England, becomes a hermit, hiding himself away behind the high walls of Dolittle Manor, with only his menagerie of animals for company. But when Queen Victoria (Jessie Buckley) falls gravely ill, a reluctant Dolittle is forced to set sail on an epic adventure to a mythical island in search of a cure, regaining ... [+]

	Media	Author	Review
		Todd McCarthy The Hollywood Reporter	"Robert Downey Jr. never finds the power-supplying third rail needed to energize a tale that fails to make a real case for being reinterpreted; you can practically hear little kids whining, 'Mommy, Daddy, can we go now?'"
		Courtney Howard Variety	"[It] proves to be as predictable as it is obnoxious (...) [It] tests audiences’ patience with overly complicated, noisy scenarios"
		Benjamin Lee The Guardian	"An uninspiring if not entirely unwatchable new take on the animal-friendly doctor (...) It won’t charm or amuse you particularly but it’s not a catastrophe, the highest praise I can muster (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"
		Manohla Dargis The New York Times	"The story remains thin, the performances wobbly, the laughs infrequent (...) The charm of this fantasy has always been dubious"
		Bilge Ebiri Vulture	"'Dolittle' is anti-cinema (...) It’s all so cluttered and shrill that I’m not even sure I got the basis of the plot right"
		Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"Come back, ‘Cats,’ we forgive you (...) a movie that even Iron Man couldn’t salvage (...) Rating: ★ (out of 5)"
		Kristen Page-Kirby The Washington Post	"Ultimately 'Dolittle' is not just a weak story, badly told, but a puzzling waste of talent (…) Rating: 0 (out of 4)"
		Katie Walsh Los Angeles Times	"Do little? They could not have done less. The only appropriate adjective for this 'Dolittle' is 'hasty.' Everything feels slapdash and half-rendered"
		David Ehrlich IndieWire	"Parents will appreciate that it’s too hyper for their kids to get bored, and too disposable for them to want to see it again"
		Matt Singer Screen Crush	"An unpleasant, incoherent mess that feels like it was stitched together from outtakes and reshoots of something that used to look totally different"
		Richard Lawson Vanity Fair	"A film made for children. So we should probably mostly view it through that lens. In that regard, the movie is perfectly okay (...) 'Dolittle' is not a funny movie"
		Kristy Puchko IGN	"But there's too little to love in 'Dolittle' (...) The cast is given little to do beyond collect their paychecks. If you're a fan of Downey, the best you can do is politely look the other way and let this one pass on by."
		Alonso Duralde The Wrap	"[It] doesn’t have a fraction of the verve of the similarly misguided 'Cats,' but it does share with that movie a staggering amount of 'What were they thinking?' decisions"
		Tim Grierson Screendaily	"A menagerie of mediocrity (...) A jumble of cutesy ideas and strained whimsy"
		Molly Freeman Screen Rant	"Robert Downey Jr. turns in a bizarre, but entertaining performance in 'Dolittle', though it doesn't much elevate this generic family-friendly adventure (…) Rating: ★★½ (out of 5)"
		Angelo Muredda Now Toronto	"A listless, bloated CG bore (...) Awful, but not in a so-bad-it’s-good way"
		Brian Truitt USA Today	"For every really cool interaction Downey's hero has with one of his animals as a caring listener, there's either an over-the-top spit take or an eye-rolling cheesy line of dialogue (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 4)"
		Katie Rife AV Club	"A confused, sweaty, zigzag approach to storytelling, which waves away inconvenient details and waves in lame jokes with an equal sense of desperation."
		Scott Mendelson Forbes	"Too short and thus too rushed and overstuffed (...) It is surface-level entertaining"
		Derek Smith Slant	"Worse than the film’s failure to truly probe Dolittle’s emotional landscape is how it surrounds him with a series of uncompelling character types (…) Rating: ★ (out of 4)"
		Kevin Maher The Times	"A beastly mess (...) Yes, it’s terrible. But just borderline awful, rather than fully offensive (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"
		Clarisse Loughrey The Independent	"It’s flat and hokey (...) This instalment is the most memorable – also the worst (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"
		Robbie Collin Telegraph	"[The animals] are all rendered in mangily unlovely CGI (...) The human characters are scarcely more convincing (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"
		Ian Freer Empire	"Downey Jr’s central performance lacks the required charming idiosyncrasies (...) [A] lacklustre kids’ flick that doesn’t find its voice (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"
		Tara Brady Irish Times	"Worse than a bad movie, this is the low-point of every career involved (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"
		Brian Lloyd entertainment.ie	"There is nothing in 'Dolittle' that is remotely worth your time. You can do yourself a big favour and watch literally anything else except this (…) Rating: ★★ (out of 5)"

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