Dr. Doolittle series

(In French, On TV, December 2022) I have some sympathy for the filmmakers assigned to Dr. Dolittle 2, handed over a mandate to make a blockbuster movie out of the spare part of the first film. Here’s Eddie Murphy, here’s a character with the ability to speak to animals, here’s special effects technology to approximate talking animals and go. The initial writing brainstorming session must have been fun, as the screenwriter crossed out various possibilities and somehow settled on a bear looking for a mate and stopping loggers from clear-cutting his habitat. This is family filmmaking at its most mercenary, even if some of the racier humour is not really for kids and the potty humour is not for adults. Murphy is along for the ride here—he barely registers as a lead as the animals keep talking away. There’s a potentially great plot turn involving Raven-Symoné’s character, but it barely registers as a third-act afterthought (although something like it would form the backbone of the third straight-to-DVD film). At the very least, Dr. Dolittle 2 has the bare-bones of a summer blockbuster: it’s reasonably well-made, mildly entertaining and innocuous enough. That’s not much, but it explains why it was a box-office hit despite underwhelming material.