Dolittle delayed review

[fardell24]

Dolittle
A movie about a 19th Century Doctor who can talk to animals, based on a series of books by Hugh Lofting. It wasn't as good as I thought it would be. The set up was fine, but there were were a lot of sillyness and misteps. Some portions of the film were better than others, but they weren't really enough to make up for those misteps. The film opens with a recap of the story of Dolittle so far. How he and his wife helped animals and set up a sanctuary. Then that his wife was lost while she was on an expedition.
I certain that would been a better story to film than the one this one turned out to be. And maybe there wouldn't have been all those misteps. The beginning, a family hunting shoots a squirrel, and one boy realises that was a big mistake, and goes to seek help for him from Doctor Dolittle.That set up was fine. That Dolittle would be reclusive and depressed after his wife's death was believable. Indeed it seems the animals were running the estate. However, the boy is not alone. There is also an envoy from the Queen.
The sequence where the two bond as they try to get Dolittle to come out of his shell was done well. But the revelation that he was talking in animal noises as he worked on the squirrel may have been on the nose. But that seems to be par for the course. Dolittle does decide to go to help the Queen with the condition she has come down with. The boy goes home in the meantime, where it's revealed that his uncle think's he is 'strange' because he is compassionate towards animals. (Interesting reason...) But more to the point, Dolittle suspects that the Queen has been poisoned (and indeed, we see machinations in the Government, to take over from her...). The investigation of the plot is handled well enough, but could have involved something other than a stick insect. (Not unreasonable that others would consider Dolittle crazy.) That he would put in place plans to protect the Queen from the plotters is reasonable (but it probably be prudent to do more than ask the handmaiden/envoy to keep a close watch on her).
And so Dolittle and the boy, sets off on a voyage to find the cure for the Queen's ailment, with a crew of animals. The settling forth portion of the voyage was done well, with Dolittle teaching the boy to sail. That there would be a navy ship following them (answering to the plotters) is believable. To escape the navy ship, Dolittle hooks up the ship to a whale to make it go faster. That is certainly interesting. It certainly rather suspenseful, and it's works to some extent. But the film goes bad again at their first destination.
But not straight away. To find the tree to cure the Queen, Dolittle needs his wife's diary, which is stored on an island... But that turns into disaster, as Dolittle is captured. And it turns out his captor is his father in law! Certainly a development that could have been better developed. But it would get worse. The parrot and the dragonfly. A tiger who wanted to eat Dolittle. These aspects could have been handled better. But the whole sequence of events at the island could have been handled better. (Of course the father grieves for his daughter.)
Even with his ship sunk, Dolittle and his motley crew goes on to find the island laid out in the diary. This is where the movie would reach it's low point, when it comes to the silliness quotient. They find the tree with the cure. The special effects may be good. But there's a dragon, with flatulence, which is caused by her swallowing armour when she ate soldiers looking for the cure. Dolittle pulling the armour out her rear end is definitely the low point of the movie. Definitely a sequence that shouldn't have been filmed.
The ending where the situation with the Queen is resolved was done well enough, certainly better than the scene with the Dragon, or at the previous island. Overall, it's not that recommended, but it is still enjoyable on some level. 6.5/10.