slightlymad22
Continuing my plan to watch every Eddie Murphy movie in order, I come to Doctor Doolittle (1998)Plot In A Paragraph: A doctor discovers he can talk to animals. Again I watched this one with my girlfriends daughter. Again we had fun watching it. I'm actually amazed at the rating this got, due to some of its humour. Kids tend to love bodily function humour, and she is no exception. I have not decided if I will permanently add it to my collection, but I certainly enjoyed myself, and have worse movies in my collection. All in all, it's a decent family movie.A few of the animals are voiced by celebs Rocky (Chris Rock) Jacob the Tiger (Albert Brooks) and one of the rats (John Leguizamo) all stand out. Sadly so did the annoying Gilbert Gottfried. Check out a nod to Rocky 3 below.Dr Doolittle grossed $144 Million at the domestic box office to end the year the 6th highest grossing movie of 1998. Against all odds, Murphy had totally reinvented himself. The brash, vulgar comedian from the early to mid 80's was gone. He was a guy who starred with animals and kids in family friendly movies. Strange to get used to as a fan of his earlier work. But it worked. There's an entire generation that only knows this Murphy. The guy from the family films.
SnoopyStyle
Dr. John Dolittle (Eddie Murphy) can talk to the animals. He used to talk to his dog as a kid, but his father forced him to stop and sent away his dog. He has denied his ability ever since, and is now a family man and a doctor. Then he starts hearing voices from animals.Norm MacDonald does a great voice as the dog. It would be better to have a buddy comedy with the dog. Eddie Murphy has good chemistry with him. The other outstanding voicework is Chris Rock who does the gerbil Rodney.It's a generally a nice family movie with some crude humor. It works on that level. Just don't expect more. The potty humor may offend the parents, but there isn't anything to be concerned about.
secondtake
Doctor Dolittle (1998)I was surprised to see this movie got such a low rating—it's not so bad. Oh, for sure it's not so great, either. But Eddie Murphy alone makes it something worth watching (he's one of the few perfect-pitch comedians out there). And the story, a 1920 classic for children, is something of its own.What falls apart is the slightly pushy sentimentalism and the generally mediocre secondary cast. That might be enough to push it into mediocrity, for sure, but it's not meant to be a deep classic, and it plays with the story nicely.That story is not just about a doctor (of the human type) who can hear animals talking. It's more about how society condemns hims and tries to help him with psycho-care. His bland wife (with the gorgeous eyes that get overplayed) is typical of his "friends," all nice people with distractions and no time for the possibility that he might, in fact, hear animals talk.The talking animals are of course great fun, from the rats to the tiger. This is the part of the movie that is meant to appeal across the board, and it does, including its good special effects. The feeling of family, not dysfunctional, is another bit of warmth, not to mention that the family is African American, a nice twist on the original story based on an English doctor.And though the movie was not liked by critics, it has made a third of a billion dollars, which speaks for itself. Not a masterpiece, and not even a classic, it still has wonderful aspects including a very wonderful basic concept.
g-bodyl
Dr.Dolittle is a nice family movie, but I would not recommend this to people expecting something hilarious like Big Daddy. Dr. Dolittle, played by Eddie Murphy, is a doctor who can hear the voices of animals. Eventually, he becomes a animal doctor and he must save a few animals. Overall, this film is not really funny, but it had a few laughs. The idea(or remake)of this film was great. The acting was good, but not great. Eddie Murphy was alright, but Chris Rock rocked as the guinea pig. There is no original music score, but there are a couple upbeat songs. The only reason I saw this film because I saw the sequel to the film before this. There were only a couple major disappointments, but not many. I rate this film a 7/10.
AD
