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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, June 22, 2001

Movie Scene
'Dr. Dolittle' sequel does little and less to find wit of original

By Marshall Fine
The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

DR. DOLITTLE 2

(Rated PG for mild profanity, sexual themes, bathroom humor)

One-and-One-Half Stars (Poor-to-Fair)

A weak sequel, in which the doctor who talks to animals tries to stop logging that will destroy the habitat of an endangered species. Starring Eddie Murphy, Raven-Symone, Kyla Pratt, Kristen Wilson, and Lil' Zane. Directed by Steve Carr. Twentieth Century-Fox. 95 minutes.

Having Dr. Dolittle become an environmentalist trying to save a forest in "Dr. Dolittle 2" could be Hollywood's idea of a liberal joke in response to plans to drill for oil in Alaska.

Or it could just be an accident of timing — something the rest of this film is sorely lacking.

The first Eddie Murphy "Dr. Dolittle," directed by Betty Thomas, was a passable shaggy-dog story about a striving yuppie doctor who discovers he has the power to talk to animals. It shared only that theme and the character's name with the Hugh Lofting stories on which the film allegedly was based.

This sequel, directed by Steve Carr, lacks even the first outing's scattergun charms. While it too claims the Lofting pedigree, I'd hate to have to get to the bottom of that particular family tree.

Having exhausted the personal-embarrassment angle in the first film (man must prove to friends and colleagues he's not crazy, even though he has interspecies conversations), the filmmakers this time make the good doctor and his menagerie into Davids, battling a Goliath represented by a greedy lumber company.

The lumber company wants to clear-cut a forest that is a natural habitat to many animals. Dolittle is summoned by the "God Beaver" (a lame "Godfather" spoof) to alert him to the crisis. When the God Beaver shows him the ravages of what once was a natural woodland, Dolittle wonders aloud, "But how do you save a forest?"

Dolittle discovers that the logging can be stopped if the forest in question provides a natural habitat to an endangered species. As it happens, there is one female of a rare species of bear left, wandering that forest — and the last specimen of the male of that species happens to be a trained performer in a nearby roadside attraction.

The male bear's name is Archie, and, as voiced by Steve Zahn, he is the film's funniest character. It's up to Dolittle to teach the domesticated Archie to live in the wild and then to court the one female bear, whose name is Ava (voiced by Lisa Kudrow).

For extra poignance, there's a subplot involving Dolittle's oldest daughter (Raven-Symone) and the growing pains that go with turning 16. While it's a funny notion to cast Murphy as the conservative middle-class dad disapproving of her daughter's b-boy suitors, the script makes the least of the idea.

Writer Larry Levin has written the kind of weak, witless script one normally associates with TV-movie-reunions of once-popular sit-coms ("Tonight, on a very special 'Welcome Back, Kotter'...").

The strong suit of the first film was the celebrity voices of the animals. Here, actors such as Isaac Hayes, Michael Rapaport and Jacob Vargas are squandered on an unfunny script that only perks up when the plot returns to Dolittle's dog, voiced by Norm McDonald.

Otherwise, "Dr. Dolittle 2" couldn't do less with the slim resources at its disposal.

Rated PG for mild profanity, sexual themes, bathroom humor