Dolittle (Stephen Gaghan, 2020)

[Never Cursed]

Dolittle, the nth talking-animals reminder from Universal that there is no God

[Reverend Drewcifer]

Dolittle, the nth tentpole release with a big director shakeup behind the scenes. With a January play date and a projected budget of $175M, here's a guaranteed upcoming episode of How Did This Get Made.

[domino harvey]

Some of the big name voice casting is just confusing: Who wants to hear John Cena as an animal? They could have saved themselves millions by just hiring people with interesting or funny voices instead

[flyonthewall2983]

I guess you weren't sufficiently charmed by Ferdinand then.

Someone who was apparently on the crew had a lot to say about what has been reported to be a problematic production

[Reverend Drewcifer]

I have to say that I love stories of problematic productions. As long as no one perishes, that is. They are abject case studies of the failures inherent in the intersection of business, art, and project management. Thanks for the link.

[domino harvey]

That crazy director is Oscar-winning writer of Traffic Stephen Gaghan, whose name on this def made me do a double-take

[mfunk9786]

This, along with that Pinocchio film that hasn't yet been made, is Downey's "one for him" if you can believe it. He and his wife are producers. The guy's apparently one of the "good ones" in show business these days but he has legendarily poor taste

[Reverend Drewcifer]

Gaghan has had a spotty post-Traffic career, and I'd always wondered if he had trouble playing with others. I loved Syriana at its release, haven't watched it since, but seem to remember intimations of some sort of a brouhaha/split with Soderbergh. Gold showed evidence of post-production tinkering and played like some sort of contraption. Gaghan's next project is reported to be an adaptation of Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. I will spring for pizza for everyone if he doesn't get sent to Movie Jail for deep-sixing nearly $200M. It will be Cincinnati-style pizza, though. Apologies in advance.

Ed: "Stephan Gaghan's Racist Dog" is now a live Twitter handle. Oh, to be alive in such an age, when miracles are everywhere, and every inch of common air throbs a tremendous prophecy, of greater marvels yet to be.

[knives]

I read the books last year and man they are fairly awful. Not only have their racial politics not aged well, but they're fairly boring for the none of you who are curious.

[domino harvey]

In case you needed something not to be thankful for today

[colinr0380]

I love how they captured the essence of the actors voicing the animals in their CGI-likenesses! Marion Cotillard is foxy! Craig Robinson is nutty! John Cena is as big as a bear! Selena Gomez has...a long neck? Octavia Spencer...gooses people a lot?

But as with Sonic while none of it looks too interesting (though if the Simpsons is to be believed that is faithfully capturing the experience of watching the original film), there seems to be nothing here that looks quite as horrific as Cats.

[knives]

It looks like they're going back to the original books which is even less interesting.

[domino harvey]

For me the worst part of the posters is Downey posing like he’s on MySpace circa 2006

[Monterey Jack]

Next year's Evan Almighty.

[DarkImbecile]

there is no God

[Never Cursed]

All I'm taking away from this is that Dolittle would make a great double feature with Uncut Gems

[therewillbeblus]

That tweet is the most persuasive encouragement I’ve come across and kind of makes me want to buy a ticket

[The Narrator Returns]

But wait, there's more!

[therewillbeblus]

This is of course directed by the guy who also helmed Syriana

[Feego]

The best movie with CGI animals since Cats!

[Never Cursed]

Again, Universal is two-for-two right now in that subgenre

[domino harvey]

That tweet is the most persuasive encouragement I’ve come across and kind of makes me want to buy a ticket

Sounds like a good flagellating double feature for when you finish Relaxer

[Swift]

We had some free rentals to use up, so this was chosen for family viewing the other night. To the utter surprise of nobody here, it was horrendous. Downey attempts a Welsh accent, but swerves into Australian, South African, Scottish and various other British accents at various times. He becomes mealy-mouthed often and every line sounds like it was all recorded in post. It all feels very lazy. I couldn't help thinking while watching that, as domino pointed out, there is no reason whatsoever to pay top rates for name actors to lend their voices to stuff like this. Most of them are anonymous and have nondescript voices to begin with (Selena Gomez, Rami Malek, Tom Holland) but even more distinctively voiced actors like Kumail Nanjiani and Marion Cotillard are low key and barely noticeable. In fact, I didn’t even realise she was in it until the end credits. Only Craig Robinson and Jason Mantzoukas do anything interesting vocally.

The script is poor, the humour is exceptionally poor with at least three fart jokes, and the CGI work looks very rushed in places, which is a shame because the costume and some of the production design is actually quite nice. Though somewhat poorly reviewed, I’d recommend last year’s stop motion Missing Link as a much better version of a Victorian explorer travelling to an exotic land on a quest kind of story. Nobody needs to see this one, not even in a so bad it's good kind of way, it's just plain bad.