1000 Tiny Birds

Dolittle (2022)

2023-01-14

Ahahahaha. Christ. Ok, fine. Dolittle. Where to even begin? There’s no sense recounting this film’s troubled productions, the sheer bleeding obviousness of tinkering as it presumably emerged mid-production that asking the man who directed Syriana to make another Dolittle film was not going to be the family friendly hit the studio were expecting. It is haphazardness writ large. Too enthralled by its leading man Robert Downey Jr, who is unchecked in his creative input to the film’s detriment and to my perverse enjoyment. Putting on a Welsh accent and calling everyone ‘boyo’ is not characterisation, yet this baffling decision is the closest thing we get throughout the film. There’s some nonsense about going on a quest, some broad knockabout comedy and palace intrigue, and Michael Sheen rocks up as a toffee-nosed doctor doing his very best not to crumple under the weight of the humiliation of it all. As is the studios want, the animated animal cast is voiced by a rag tag collection of, just, names? Only Jason Mantzoukas particularly shines through and inflects some personality into the mix, and even then we’re lucky. Imagine being Downey Jr leaving the Marvel Cinematic Universe to go and make something with meaning, with integrity, with heart, and ending up here.