Normally, if anyone told me that Eddie Murphy was making a sequel to one of his more successful movies, I’d tell them that I won’t rush to Hollywood Video to rent it. I dragged my feet into the store this time too, after my husband unpacked our grumpy dumplings from their carseats, threatening our oldest son with dire consequences if he didn’t stop haranguing his father with rants of ’’Wanna play Playstation!’’ My beleaguered spouse muttered to me ’’Just grab Dr. Dolittle 2 and let’s get outta here, vieja!’’ He then took my youngest over to the kids’ video section to play with the Lego table set up in the corner, while I surgically extracted my oldest from the video game racks, glancing furtively through the New Arrivals shelf for ’’Rugrats in Paris.’’ No dice. But there were plenty of copies of Dr. Dolittle 2. I shelled five bucks for that movie, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon video (which was free with rental of a full-price, new arrival), and a packet of microwave popcorn. My oldest threw a tantrum all the way out the door, particularly after I made him put back the PlayStation disc that he kept holding behind his back.
Once again, I found myself watching a movie that was just a one-and-a-half hour-long R&B soundtrack video. I already had that experience earlier this year with ’’Kingdom Come’’ starring LL Cool J. This was also the second Eddie Murphy sequel that my husband pushed me to see this year; we brought home ’’The Klumps’’ and regretted it, too. My husband tried to rationalize with me, saying ’’Ah, it wasn’t that bad, it was kind of funny…’’
’’No, you don’t even remember; you FELL ASLEEP through the second half!’’
The Klumps was an exercise in futility (and flatulence) that made me want to kick myself for not just hitting ’’rewind’’ and taking it out of the VCR after the first half hour. Dr. Dolittle 2 is ripe with fart and potty humor, but to a less tasteless extent, thank goodness. The whole cast that played the original Dolittle family is back again (Kristen Wilson as the mother, Kyla Pratt as the younger daughter, and Raven Symone as Charysse, who nicknamed herself ’’Paprika’’ in the first one). I thought the younger daughter was cute in the first movie, but she only has about two lines throughout this entire film.
The plot is definitely silly, and they were definitely reaching for but missing plausibility in the screenplay. Dr. Dolittle is still a veterinarian with a thriving business, but this time he is also providing psychiatric care for his animal patients, who now seem to be coming out of the woodwork. His daughter Charysse turns Sweet 16, except that she isn’t very sweet; her mother has to page her or call her cell phone to get her to come out of her room. Charysse also ends up inviting her boyfriend to dinner when her father won’t let her get out of the birthday party that her parents planned for her. It’s fun watching Eddie Murphy play a protective father for a change, and he actually acts his age for once. There weren’t enough scenes like this; instead, this movie hits you upside the head with CGI-animated animals and green screens.
Soon, various forest critters approach him at home on behalf of their seemingly Mafia-esque boss (a plump beaver that sounds a bit like Brando), appealing to him to help them halt plans to develop their forest, thus displacing them all from their homes. Unfortunately, I can’t go into much more detail about how the forest animals’ fate depends on whether Dr. Dolittle can train a circus bear how to live in the wild; it was a weird transition, it made no sense, and I started losing interest in the movie. There was also some strangeness about Archie (the circus bear) having to mate with a Pacific Western bear named Ava (apparently one of the last of her kind) to help propagate an endangered species. When I read the Yahoo Movies production notes to refresh my memory, it was STILL pretty vague.
Dr. Dolittle and his family eventually end up renting a log cabin in the country, and of course the talking animals abound. There were a lot of celebrity voices for the animals again, including Norm McDonald returning as Lucky the dog, and Lisa Kudrow as Ava the bear; her voice was easy to recognize. Charysse keeps stirring up trouble by picking fights with her father and inviting her boyfriend to stay without asking permission; she’s also harboring the secret that she’s beginning to hear the animals talk. You first notice this when the talking iguana tells her she has dandruff; the camera pans to her walking out of the cabin and checking her shoulder for flakes.
Some of the scenes with Archie the Bear were funny, although perhaps they went a trifle too far with a toilet scene that could have come straight out of Dumb and Dumber. Dr. Dolittle has to teach him how to fish (the bear almost drowns himself holding his head underwater too long), how to run, and how to hibernate (complete with a creepy explanation about how bears don’t poop during that time). In the meantime, Archie also has to contend with a rival for Ava’s affections that talks like a hillbilly. Just when you thought the screenwriters ran out of strange ideas, Lucky the dog spends most of the movie coming on to a female wolf. As I said earlier, farfetched, implausible, and silly. Kevin Pollak and Jeffrey Jones, two great character actors, were both wasted in this movie as the condominium developers.
This video features behind the scenes footage and filming details after the credits roll; as well as a music video by Wyclef and the Product G&B.
The language isn’t too bad, there is no nudity, and it is not an exceptionally violent film (rated PG). My kids didn’t have much of an interest in watching it, even with the slapstick scenes and talking animals. If you are looking for a family movie, don’t bother.