'Dolittle' does little that's good

So, after two modern-day Eddie Murphy versions around the turn of the millennium, Robert Downey Jr. has brought Dr. Dolittle, the eccentric fellow who can talk to animals in their own language, back into the 19th century, as were the original stories by Hugh Lofting and the 1968 screen version that starred Rex Harrison.

Except that the computer animated animals in Stephen Gaghan's shipwreck of a movie didn't get the message. The voice cast of Emma Thompson, Rami Malek, Octavia Spencer, Tom Holland, John Cena, Marion Cotillard and Ralph Fiennes has been reduced to lowest-common-denominator jokes and modern colloquialisms that make them sound like millennials at 4:20.

"I got your back, Doc!"

"It's showtime!"

"Don't worry guys, I got this!"

Downey is properly eccentric in the title role, pretty much how he played Sherlock Homes but going even more over-the-top. It's essentially an animated film, fronted by a live action Downey and Michael Sheen's one-note villain. Only Antonio Banderas, in a small role, truly seems to be having a great time.

Young children might find the film entertaining, as they have been spoon-fed the bland animated characters of Pixar, DreamWorks, et al. Adults will tire of it quickly.

The plot: Dr. Dolittle has this amazing ability to talk to animals in their own voices. After his wife dies, he lives with several of them in a Howard Hughes-like isolation inside his mansion. There's a parrot, a dog, a gorilla, an ostrich and so on, who interact in concert with Dolittle. He plays chess with them; they assist him when he surgically repairs a wounded squirrel.

(Question: We know Dolittle can communicate perfectly with all kinds of animals, even insects. But left unsaid is that for all these different types of animals to work together, each of them...