When Eddie Murphy started making movies, he made Rated R action-dramas with filthy language, nudity and lots of murder and mayhem. Then in the space of about a decade, he phased into his “family film” era. There was no real reason for it, but some have said that Murphy wanted to make the kind of movies his idol Jerry Lewis would have made. He even remade some of Jerry Lewis’s movies. Anyway, that era of Eddie Murphy’s oeuvre has never been my cup of tea, except for the Dr. Dolittle movies. The first one never fails to make me laugh. It’s so stupid, I know. But I enjoy them. So… they decided to do another remake, or I guess they hope to make Dolittle into another mega-franchise full of CGI animals, because we have this now: Robert Downey Jr. doing a hilariously awful British accent and surrounding himself with CGI animals. Okay.
I wish they had leaned harder into the humor of Dr. Dolittle instead of making it about soaring music and beautiful animals and whatever. Check out the cast list: I would assume that most of those people are just doing animal voices. RALPH FIENNES!! Anyway… this is RDJ’s first post-Marvel role and it’s clear that he’s still down with #AllTheCGI. God, will this be another super-successful franchise for RDJ? I can’t. The accent is so bad and the story seems utterly nonsensical.
Poster courtesy of Universal and photo courtesy of WENN.
I was literally just texting my sister about this- I’m a huge RDJ stan, and normally I like that he’s a quirky weirdo who decided to leverage his charm/talent into a mega mega mega franchise….but his picker can really be off, you know? I actually saw the judge in theatres and the whole time I was thinking, did he read the script and think it was good?? It needed at least two more rounds of revision, even though the concept and acting talent were there. This strikes me as similar; an attempt to remake a notoriously racist/colonialist property in an interesting way, but ultimately a huge mess.
Speaking of, does this trailer look like they’re on an adventure to India..? With stereotypical Indian bad guys..? I see Antonio banderas is playing a live action part named “Rassouli”, which doesn’t sound Indian to me, but that shot of him in the thick eyeliner followed by RDJ in the quasi-Indian looking hat…this feels really off :/
Personally I loved “The Judge” and I especially loved Robert Duval in it. But this trailer is a bit weird in that I watched it and I still don’t know what the hell the movie is about.
This. A good trailer should do three things:
1) set up the world and main character
2) tell us what the character wants and why
3) tell us what stands in their way.
This trailer only does 1/3.
I disagree on your trailer analogy. A good trailer does one thing make you want to see the movie. It’s just an ad for a movie. This remake is not the Eddie Murphy take but the Rex Harrison one, and just souped up a bit for today’s kids. I think it could be a good movie, and it’s audience is probably not us, but I’d see it.
As far as his accent, wow people are really critical. He says like 3 lines in the trailer and most of it is to animals, it might sound better with more dialogue.
This is faithful to the first Dr Doolittle movie which was a big cinema thing. It starred Rex Harrison and he travelled the world in a large snail shell. It was fantasy and over the top and as a kid I loved watching it for the spectacle but I really don’t remember the story line. While the Eddie Murphy movies were cute, this is more in keeping with the original. I’m not a big movie goer lately, but this looks like something I’d go to.
I can’t even work out the accent he’s doing- is it Scottish?
This seems like the Rock should be starring in it- don’t get me wrong I love me some DJ.
I had so much difficulty understanding him in the Sherlock movies. I only understood the plot when it came out on DVD and I put on captions.
The Eddie Murphy Dr.Dolittle was a HUGE departure from the source material. This is more faithful to the original from what I can tell.
I could ‘t even the watch the full trailer, his acce t was THAT bad. Also, this being dumped in January is never a good sign.
The January date is actually smart. This is a Universal movie, not Disney. Universal has had success in recent years by carefully avoiding Disney releases and crowded traditional release weekends. Plus, this will premier right around MLK 3-day weekend and will likely have no other family-fare competition.
But even a good release strategy won’t save it if people aren’t interested.
Interesting that you say that; to me, this looked like a mish-mash of various Disney movies & themes.
I really like everything about the trailer except the song. Why play a slow “What a wonderful world” over an action packed trailer with it’s own action beats. 2 music overlays is really weird to me. But movie directors usually have nothing to do with the trailers, so hopefully the movie is good. It looks like our whole family will like it. And yes, weird Scottish accent is weird. But it’s a fantasy kids movie so I don’t care.
I wonder why they didn’t use the ‘Talk to the Animals’ song.
He’s doing a really over the top Welsh accent. Badly.
She i saw it I was thinking I hope he doesn’t become the next Johnny depp with his movie choices.
It has a little ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ feel.
“From the producer of Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent” suuch disappointing movies! That’s all I needed to know
Yup. Same.
This is definitely a movie for children exclusively. You can tell by how over the top the filming is, it really does feel like the original movie. It also feels like the original Mary Poppins and Willy Wonka and Chocolate Factory (Gene Wilder version). Just larger than life action and characters. I will watch this with the little kids in my life for sure.
Somebody on Twitter said the poster makes it look like a 2007 direct-to-dvd movie and now I can’t unsee it.
oh wow, not gonna lie – i think i’ll watch it. i’m liking that it looks like a great adventure with adorable animals. there are sure to be aww moments in this. and also, rdj’s charm is undeniable in this trailer, even with the not so great accent. damn, i miss tony stark.