DR. DOLITTLE 2 --------------
Eddie Murphy's back as the San Franciscan doctor who can talk to the animals. Just as he's coming to terms with daughter Charisse's (Raven-Symone, "Dr. Dolittle") sixteenth birthday and dating, Dr. D's given a message from a possum (voice of Isaac Hayes) that he must meet with a beaver in the forest. When the possum's ignored, a rather mobster-like raccoon (voice of Michael Rapaport) appears with smooth birthday wishes and a more forceful request. Dr. D meets the beaver (Richard C. Sarafian) and learns they need his assistance to keep developers from destroying their forest. Dr. D's at a loss, until he discovers that a lone, endangered Pacific Western bear lives there - if he can find a mate and establish the forest as breeding grounds, the government will step in to protect their habitat. Dr. D finds Archie (voice of Steve Zahn), a circus bear who likes the plush life, and attempts to turn him into a macho suitor in "Dr. Dolittle 2."
"Dr. Dolittle 2" features a new director (Steve Carr) and the film's original screenwriter (Larry Levin). This is a sequel with the same strengths and the same (albeit fewer) flaws as the original.
Once again, the story sags when focus is on the human characters, although some spirit is injected by Lil' Zane as Charisse's new boyfriend. (It's fun to watch Murphy rif on the protective dad thing.) The bad-guy developers (Jeffrey Jones and Kevin Pollack) aren't as obtrusive as the evil medical practice partners of the original, either. However, once again Mrs. Dolittle (Kyla Pratt) is painted as a shrew when painfully obvious miscommunications have her ordering her husband out of the bedroom and onto to the couch.
When the filmmakers and special effects maestros turn to the animals, however, "Dr. Dolittle 2" mostly works. Eva, the forest's wild female bear (charmingly voiced by Lisa Kudrow) immediately declares Archie weird, but his funny antics and persistence begin to make inroads. We do learn more than we need to about Archie's wild and domesticated bathroom habits, and there's Lucky's territory marking competition with a wolf, but the toilet humor comes with the film's demographics. The mob societal structure of the forest denizens is a nice anthropomorphic touch. New character, Pepito, a chameleon who can't change color, doesn't have much to do with the story, but gets a healthy share of the funny lines.
As with the original, the technical budget has gone towards making the animals interact over making the forest locations seem real.
Eddie Murphy delivers, as do the effects crew, but "Dr. Dolittle 2" is clearly for the kiddies.
C
For more Reeling reviews visit www.reelingreviews.com
laura@reelingreviews.com robin@reelingreviews.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews