Not the Mutt's ....
"Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts" is the third of the off shoots from the Eddie Murphy "Dr. Dolittle" movies which focus on the character of Maya and unfortunately it's not good. I don't like to be mean as these movies which have turned the focus on Maya and aimed to entertain a younger audience are on par with a lot of pre teen movies but it is so cheesy and vacuous that I struggle to see how even young children would be entertained. Basically it ends up a mess, throwing dull scenes at the audience before finding some moral to the story and then delivering a happy ever after ending.
17 year old Maya Dolittle (Kyla Pratt) is getting ready to leave home for college something her dog Lucky is not happy about and even Maya is not too enthusiastic as going to Vet School means 7 years of studying rather than helping animals immediately. But Maya's head gets turned when spoilt rich girl Tiffany Monaco (Tegan Moss) invites her to Hollywood to talk to her pet pooch to find out what is up and before she knows it Maya has an agent and a TV show just because she can talk to animals.
Let me start by telling you what the moral of the movie is, well any good kids movie is going to have a moral and this one is basically you can't run before you can walk. We watch as Maya discovers that whilst she has the special gift of being able to talk to the animals it doesn't mean that she can actually help them. Now the thing is that this moral of the movie only actually shows up for about 5 minutes towards the end of the movie and much of what happens before has little relation to it.
Now as to what happens before well it is simply vacuous delivering nothing which is new of fresh and funny. Now in fairness "Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts" is a movie which seems to have regressed, instead of being for maybe young teens and pre-teens it seems to be targeting an even younger audience so the obvious storyline isn't an issue as Maya's head gets turned by fame and tricked by an agent. But what is seriously wrong is that none of what we see from a Gangsta rapper with a fluffy bunny to a stock car racer with a frog is funny. It's not even funny in a daft way and it makes the movie an arduous slog which I seriously doubt will be entertaining for the target audience of young children either.
What this all boils down to is that "Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts" is a mistake and I am sure it must fail to entertain even its target audience let alone any unfortunate adults who find themselves sitting through it. There is nothing offensive about but then there is really nothing about it anyway and seems more an excuse to drain the last few pennies from the franchise before it is over.
