I have read some dreadful reviews of Dolittle–all of them written by critics. Dig a little deeper, though, and you’ll find reviews from your everyday mum/dad/viewer and you’ll find a kinder story. I have to agree with the latter group of people. This is one of those films where ‘the critics’ (whoever they are) have taken to the film with a ‘slash-and-burn’ pile-on mentality, throwing enough weight into their words to make them sound superior. (It is reminiscent of many book reviews I’ve read with the same lofty attitude.) Another time I’ve had to disagree with the critics is with the film The Holiday (starring Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet). To this day, The Holiday remains one of my favourite films of all time and from my perspective is a fantastic piece of romantic comedy that does exactly what it sets out to do and leaves us all feeling happy at the end. The critics smashed it; audiences felt differently.

Back to Dolittle… This film is not brilliant (though Robert Downey Jnr is), but it doesn’t deserve the backlash it’s received. Apparently, it had a fraught production, with multiple shootings, heavy rewriting, severe editing, delayed schedule, and ‘new talent’ brought into the production team to try to save it. Despite this, there are many things working in its favour.

The storyline begins with Dr Dolittle having hidden himself away from the world as a hermit living solely with his eccentric bunch of talking animals. Never having recovered from the loss of his wife and having grown a long beard and acting much like an animal himself, he is like a castaway who has been stranded on an island for many years, which, metaphorically speaking, he is. This all changes with two adolescents arrive onto his property on the same day and he is called back out into the world to save the dying queen of England or lose his estate he shares with his beloved animals. This leads him to open his world and ultimately his heart, all while sailing the seas to mystical islands, essentially in a bit of a pirate race with the bad guys. Downy Jnr is a master actor and there is real depth in the grief he portrays while barely saying a word about it. 

As an animal lover, I adored the many wonderful animals in this film and general notions of living closely with them and being able to communicate with them as equals and I know many other animals lovers will feel the same. As a human, I appreciate the journey Dolittle must take to re-enter the world after such a crushing loss.

I agree with the critics in that a lot of the humour falls flat. There were several times in the theatre when the entire audience was dead silent when I’m sure they were supposed to be laughing. But it was entertaining enough to keep my seven-year-old engaged (and he has a ruthless attention span) and it’s a good piece of harmless, enjoyable fun.

Verdict: take it for what it is and enjoy

School holidays have been and gone and movies were consumed!

Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, Sven and Olaf are back to continue the journey of life in Arendelle in Frozen II (or Frozen 2). I took my seven-year-old son to see it and here’s what we thought.

Firstly, my son was not even a year old when the first Frozen came onto the screens and I somehow managed to miss the whole event until he was four years old, at which point he saw it, loved it, loved the song, and dressed up and sang along just like every other kindergarten kid. Now a big seven-year-old, he said he didn’t want to see Frozen II because he didn’t like it. I asked him what he even remembered about the first one, to which he paused and said, ‘I remember the song.’ Okay, yes, we all remember the song. Fair point. (And the film even takes a moment to make fun of it too.) Still, I made him go because it was stinking hot, I was exhausted and needed a sit-down activity, I wanted to see it, and there was nothing else on at my local cinema that was suitable. His final objections to seeing it were doused at the promise of an ice cream.

Generally speaking, sequels are rarely as good at the originals and this movie had to meet a bar set so high from the from first one it’s amazing it ever got off the ground.

The story continues following the lives of sisters Elsa and Anna in their kingdom of Arendelle who, at the end of the previous film, had been a rightful queen who had faced her fears and embraced her own uniqueness and was accepted by the people (Elsa) and had been a much wiser and more grounded woman, who’d learned hard lessons about trust and love and had proved to her sister that she was worthy of standing by her side (Anna). In Frozen II, Elsa is visited by a song only she can hear, calling her out of the kingdom and to an enchanted (but magically locked) forest, where she has to heal a great injury of the past.

The film is once again visually luxe and enchanting. Elsa is still conflicted, but not in a way I was expecting, and to be honest I’m not sure it was particularly clear why she was so conflicted and why the end result was as it was. (Please excuse my vagueness, I’m trying not to give away spoilers.) The greatest loss in this film, for me, was Kristoff, who was so funny, warm and active in the previous film but who has been relegated to the background, his one and only big scene seeing him singing a lovesick eighties-style power ballad in forest. That would have been okay (nothing wrong with an eighties power ballad) but it was pretty much all we saw of him and I missed him. His role in this film is to spend the entire time trying to propose to Anna. For me, this was unnecessary. I would be quite happy for them to be ‘living in sin’ together 🙂 But it seems that while Disney has made some great advances in breaking female stereotypes with this film, they couldn’t resist falling back on this particular princess trope.

There was some BIG messages in his film and if you are in any way prone to looking to nature for spiritual wisdom then this movie has some big things to say. ‘Water has a memory’ is the first big one we encounter and if you are at all familiar with Dr Emoto’s work studying water crystals this one will strike a cord. But there is a lot in here about making peace with the past and, specifically, about redressing the injuries caused to indigenous populations from colonial conquests. It hammers the idea of the interconnectedness of all from beginning to end, which some viewers will read as magic and into which others will find much deeper meaning.

The water horse. Amazing! Enough said.

There is a bit of a bushfire scene early on in the piece, which is quite tense, and if you have been affected by the recent Australian bushfires (which, in this country, aren’t we all in one way or another?) then be warned that could be a bit of trigger.

In terms of the plot, there is simply so much going on that it is convoluted and I did find myself more than once thinking, why are they doing this, exactly? It was a masterclass in writing–too many subplots can destroy the power of the main plot.

Did I love it? Yes, I did. Did my son? Yes, he did 🙂 He laughed, he was on the edge of his seat, he might have even cried at one point (I know I did!), and as soon as it was finished he said, ‘I enjoyed that a lot more than I thought I would.’

Is it as good as the first? They’re different beasts. Each is great in its own way. I don’t need something to be perfect for it to be enjoyable. A critical eye is one that looks to devalue and break down. I’d rather look at the whole thing and ask, Am I glad I saw it? Yes, most definitely.

Verdict: Absolutely worth seeing, on the big screen if possible.