A colourful start to the decade

Dolittle
Rating: 2.5/5
Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Tom Holland, Selena Gomex, Emma Thompson, Rami Malek
Director: Stephen Gaghan
Language: English (U)

With impressive graphics and 3D, ‘Dolittle’ is the kind of film you must watch in a theatre.

On a smaller screen, the grandeur will not hit you and you are more likely to notice the flaws.

The film tells the story of Dr John Dolittle, who reluctantly takes to an adventure after a hermetic hiatus following his wife’s death.

The plot is predictable and we may ignore it.

The most worthwhile part of the film is the star cast, which is a who’s who list of talents from both sides of the Atlantic.

Seeing familiar names in unlikely animal forms is one of Hollywood’s staple pleasures and ‘Dolittle’ continues in this indulgence.

There seems to be everyone from Antonio Banderas to Emma Thompson to Selena Gomez on this romp.

The humour is good when it hits the mark, but it often does not. Ambitiously, the film at one point even parodies Don Corleone from ‘The Godfather’ (1972): a leader of a group of gangster ants makes the ‘you come into my house on the day of daughter’s wedding’ speech.

Robert Downey Jr.’s Welsh doesn’t really settle down, even for those who are familiar with his British (‘Chaplin’, ‘Sherlock Holmes’).

On the whole, the film is a breezy way to start the year, provided you don’t take it too seriously.