It seems that hard-living young comedians only have two possible fates as the years go by. One is to crash and burn out like Chevy Chase, George Carlin, or – in the extreme examples, John Belushi, Chris Farley and too many others who lost their lives to their excesses. The other possible outcome is what I call Robin Williams Disease – a condition (some would say worse than death) that sees former comedic dynamos reduced to sappy, bland shadows of their former selves.
Now, I’d never wish any young comedic dynamo bad luck, but I sure wish there were a third option. And it’s Eddie Murphy who’s perhaps in the greatest need of an alternative at this stage of his career. At least Robin Williams comes up with new sentimental pap rather than retreading identical material over and over by repeatedly making the same one-joke movie twice. That’s what Murphy did with The Nutty Professor and Nutty Professor II, and he’s done it again with another remake and another sequel to a remake – Dr. Dolittle and Dr. Dolittle 2. ‘Do little’ is right, as this boring would-be comedy tries – and fails – to squeeze out a bunch more laughs from the talking animals premise.
Now don’t get me wrong; the technology that’s used in these movies is marvellous – computer animation succeeds in making these beasts really look like they’re talking. The only problem is that they – and the human characters – have very little that’s interesting or funny to say. There’s some cute animal dialogue here and there throughout the film, but the bottom line here is that there wasn’t enough to the concept to sustain one movie, let alone two.
The story is the stuff of a thousand kids movies, as the good doctor is drafted into service by the wildlife of a forest near his San Francisco home. The birds and beasts are upset because a nasty forest company – owned by Joseph Potter (Jeffrey Jones) and represented legally by the slimy Jack Riley (Kevin Pollak) – plans to clear-cut their home for fun and profit. Dolittle – who has troubles of his own at home with an alienated 16-year-old daughter and a wife who’s growing tired of animals always taking priority over her husband’s flesh and blood – is the animals’ only hope to survive Potter’s onslaught.
Our sardonic narrator is Dolittle’s dog, Lucky (voiced by Norm MacDonald), and there’s a whole bunch of familiar voices attached to the bears, rats, deer, beavers and other animals that populate the forest. The movie tries to create a family-friendly tale of underdogs winning out, while also generating as many laughs as possible along the way. Unfortunately, there just aren’t that many. Like so many lacklustre comedies, this one stoops to bathroom humour in an effort to get its comedic juices flowing; it doesn’t work.
Rarely has nature seemed so dull and an environmental appeal so uninspiring. And if you thought Murphy’s recent movies have been increasingly bland, this is certainly more of the same.
