I follow my Spoiler-Free reviews on my blog @ https://www.msbreviews.com. Everyone’s familiar with the Dolittle movies starring Eddie Murphy, and truthfully, I was never fond of those films. They're intentionally silly, innocent, and rely on that simplest form of comedy—they didn’t bother me, but they also weren’t particularly remarkable. The 2020 version of this familiar story marks Robert Downey Jr.’s first role after the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it has a well-known cast, and…it's one of the worst films released this year, without question. It’s a complete failure in every aspect of filmmaking. I’m not sure where to begin. Perhaps with RDJ, since his performance is the biggest disappointment. I can hardly believe an actor as charismatic and now iconic as he is could deliver something so bad. His Welsh (?) accent isn't just a poor choice for his character; I doubt children can even understand what he's saying. He acts like a strange imitation of himself, which doesn’t help the already flawed movie. The voice acting from the rest of the cast might be the only good thing about the film, but the CGI animals look incredibly unrealistic. However, as always, the biggest problems lie with the story itself. Instead of being an enjoyable and entertaining adventure, it's a remarkably boring, nonsensical, and poorly structured journey leading to one of the most ridiculous endings I’ve ever seen. Even trying to see it through the eyes of a child, I don't think I would find this screenplay amusing. As mentioned earlier, even the animals look unconvincing… Certain characters have unexplained connections that viewers are meant to care about, but there’s no background information given for any of them. Many plot points lack logical explanations. The entire story lacks creativity and originality; it simply feels like a careless and unimaginative project. The “young queen who falls gravely ill” is just a woman lying in bed, not appearing sick at all, which shows that even the makeup department didn’t bother to try. But all of those issues pale in comparison to the film's ending. I don't want to give anything away, so I’ll just say that I still can’t believe what I witnessed. Almost ninety minutes of buildup lead to the most shocking, hilarious, and completely absurd moment imaginable. The humor is below even childish levels—lots of fart jokes (including one during the climax), exaggerated reactions, and a whole lot more. Between Bloodshot, Fantasy Island, and The Grudge… let something awful take over! Overall, Dolittle fails on every level. It was destined to be among the worst films of the year, and it certainly achieved that goal. From Robert Downey Jr.’s surprisingly terrible performance to one of the most shockingly bad climaxes in cinematic history, Stephen Gaghan delivers a screenplay without structure, filled with illogical narrative choices, and presenting an extremely dull adventure. The CGI animals are far from impressive; the characters lack personality (having a well-known actor doesn’t guarantee anything), and the comedy is so unbelievably basic that I doubt children would even find some of the jokes funny—and they usually laugh at everything. With a budget of 175 million dollars (!!!), it's incomprehensible how or why a studio would waste that much money on such an obvious failure. The voice work from the cast is good… and honestly, it could have been worse. That’s about as positive as I can get. Rating: D-

Source on TMDB