5.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A physician discovers that he can talk to animals.
Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Antonio Banderas, Michael Sheen, Jim Broadbent, Jessie BuckleyFamily | 100% |
Fantasy | 96% |
Comedy | 67% |
Video codec: HEVC / H.265
Video resolution: 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
French: Dolby Digital Plus 7.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital Plus 7.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Digital copy
4K Ultra HD
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The story of Dr. Dolittle -- the man who can speak to animals -- has now been a part of popular culture for a century. Hugh Lofting's first published story to feature the character released in 1920, and he's been portrayed by screen greats like Rex Harrison and Eddie Murphy over the years. Add Robert Downey, Jr. to the list. The actor who will forever be immortalized as Iron Man leaves behind the mask and the Marvel Cinematic Universe for talking animals and farting dragons. But talk is cheap, as they say, and so too is this movie, not so much in financial cost but in finished product quality. Dolittle rings hollow, tightrope walking that fine line between crudely entertaining and completely disastrous. The movie finds a few moments of fun but it's otherwise a curiosity of missed opportunity and a cesspool of incessantly bad jokes and flat adventure that the filmmakers hope to mask with an endless array of digital wizardry.
The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc.
Dolittle's 2160p/Dolby Vision UHD video presentation does much for the movie's visual vitality. Colors are dramatic and expressive with natural
greens in the opening minutes eye-opening for color stretch, depth, and dramatic shading. Foliage leaps off the screen, green grass is breathtakingly
crisp, and tones that dot the landscape enjoy the sort of tonal intensity one can only dream of. The palette proves its value throughout, in fact, with
everything from dark animal fur to earthen support tones enjoying the sort richness reserved for the finest transfers. Add in exceptionally beautiful
whites, deeply enveloping and detailed blacks, and perfectly shaded skin tones and the Dolby Vision color grading yields one of the best palettes on the
UHD format yet. Textural improvements are also quite strong over the Blu-ray. The movie is razor-sharp front to back, with both natural and manmade
elements the beneficiaries of remarkable clarity and exquisite attention to detail. The image is very filmic despite its digital origins (reportedly photographed at 8K and finished at 2K). Skin tones are
endlessly clear and ceaselessly revealing, garments show every stitch and fray, and even digital constructs are tangibly realistic. Noise management is
superior to the Blu-ray and there are no problematic source or encode issues of note. Dolittle looks tremendous under the UHD specification.
Dolittle's Dolby Atmos soundtrack delivers impressive technical results but offers nothing above and beyond. Much of the movie is dialogue intensive and there no problems there for positioning, prioritization, or detail. Music enjoys robust space across all planes and impressive engagement at the low end. Out at sea mid-movie, creaking woods, splashing waters, blowing winds, and a storm in chapter 11 -- which is only heard briefly -- do much to draw the listener into the location, much more than the story to be sure. Chapter 14 is home to some dynamic action that sees cannonballs flying through the stage, explosions sending good depth and hurtling debris through the listening area, and other examples of intensive chaos, all of which blend together in frenzied harmony but at the same time offer enough in the way of clarity excellence and discrete placement to follow individual sounds. The most surround intensive, fluid, and dynamic stretch comes in chapter 16 during an action scene comprised of various sound elements involving chaos in a cavern. Like a couple of chapters before it, everything is in good working order. This is a solid, agreeable track, just not one for the record books.
Dolittle's UHD includes six featurettes. A Blu-ray copy of the film and a Movies Anywhere digital copy code are included with purchase. This
release ships with an embossed slipcover.
Dolittle's story drags, the laughs are flat, the adventure isn't engaging, and the story is not at all captivating. At its absolute best it's passable entertainment, the sort of movie that might work well for the easily amused or as a diversion in trying times when any reprieve from reality might be welcome, as is currently the case. And, as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures. Worth a look to keep the family, and the little ones in particular, smiling for 100-some minutes. The UHD is of first-rate quality and includes a handful of modest extras, so the technical package is everything it should be.
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