Stars: Eddie Murphy, Ossie Davis, Oliver Platt, Chris Rock, Norm Macdonald, Pee-Wee Herman, Garry Shandling, Ving Rhames

Director: Betty Thomas

Summary: A successful doctor who is content with his lot--nice family, good career--suddenly discovers that he can understand animal speech... Now every animal wants his advice.

A remake of the 1967 Richard Fleischer film of the same name, about an animal doctor whose patients' barks, squeals, and meows turn into actual human voices, stirring up the practice. Eddie Murphy updates the role as a San Francisco doctor who as a boy was looked upon strangely by everyone when he claimed he could talk to animals. Now an adult, a near wreck stirs something in him and suddenly he can understand the animals again, whether he wants to or not.

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Betty Thomas directs and Eddie Murphy stars in Doctor Dolittle, the 1998 hit film which, while ostensibly aimed at children, has a high quotient of hip and even mildly gross humour. Murphy stars as John Dolittle, whom we see as a child talking to a neighbourhood dog who explains that the reason mutts sniff each others' butts is to assess their characters when first meeting them. Little John promptly tries this out on being introduced to his school principal. Warned off such social eccentricity, Dolittle stops talking to animals and as an adult becomes a respectable doctor running his own medical practice--until a bump on the head revives his capacity to understand animals, whereupon mayhem, mortification and a menagerie of needy and freeloading creatures are heaped upon his ordered existence. Murphy plays it relatively straight. It's the animals, some of them vividly enhanced by Jim Henson's animating team, who provide the real laughs here, and a thoroughly worldly, wisecracking bunch of characters they prove to be. There's a couple of hard-boiled, squabbling rats, a pigeon who complains of impotence, Rocky the guinea pig (voiced by Chris Rock) with a neat line in hip backchat, while Albert Brooks voices the gruff, melancholy tiger whose life Dolittle must try to save. A sweet but by no means saccharine comedy.

On the DVD: The DVD edition features scene selection and a trailer. --David Stubbs

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen, 16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Interactive Menus, Scene Access, Original Theatrical Trailer
Subtitles:	Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish
Year:	1998
Release Date:	July 2, 2001
Runtime:	82 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	02762 D V D
Keywords:	Comedy, General, Doctor, Dr, Dolittle
Genre:	Comedy