Okay, here's the deal. Being a red-blooded American male of the species, I, like all my brethren, enjoy a good reclamation project. Building something out of the junked remnants of something else. Not houses, mind you. Too much work, and, honestly, too much restriction. You let a man plan out how he's gonna restore a house, don't let anyone put it on any of those "historical tours" that the South loves so much. Folks pay upwards of seven bucks to drop by your house and look around, noting all the historical touches you've added to the house, like pulling out that old mantle with Gen. Sherman's name carved in it to make more room for your Home Theatre System. Folks aren't too forgiving when it comes to changing from the past to the present, destroying the memories in favor of a splashy new look.
Give a guy a burned-out wreck of a car, and he's as happy as a pig in slop. Or let him turbocharge some old appliance instead of buying a new one (if the phrase "That's a perfectly good..." has ever come from your mouth, you know what I'm talking about.) Nothing tickles a man more than buying a toaster at a yard sale for a quarter, and spending $40 making it work. Me, I'm forever tinkering with a '68 Camaro I bought at a police auction a couple of years ago. I got all the bullet holes out of the side panels, but the engine still won't start. I'm actually considering buying a book to learn how to fix it, even though that's considered cheating.
Seems like Hollywood digs the reclamation business too. Here lately, there's been a trend toward resurrecting actors and actresses who were thought to be done with, save the occasional infommercial and maybe a slow night on with Regis and Kathie Lee, may she rest in pieces. Travolta is a big name in this arena, once billed in dreck like The Experts to now being a bigger name than he was with the Sweathogs. The Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams found a deadpan has-been actor and made him into one of the funniest slapstick actors going with Leslie Neilsen. Nobody saw that coming. Even in the past year, folks are proclaiming Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock "back," and nobody really knew they were "gone." And, let's not forget the all-time comeback queen, Gloria Stuart. She takes 40 years off, and thanks to Jim Cameron and a leaky boat, she's an Oscar nominee and in demand.
Let's not forget Eddie Murphy, either. He was virtually spinning his wheels, bogging deeper and deeper into the sand. Remember Vampire in Brooklyn? (Who could forget how bad that was.) That could've been a rusty nail in the coffin for him, no pun intended. Coming off of a horribly boring Beverly Hills Cop III and two or three other snores, he was dubbed 86. So, what does he do? He rebuilds himself. But, instead of trying something radically new, he goes back and rethinks his style, and, wonder of wonders, cleans his act up. He makes a remake of The Nutty Professor, the Jekyll and Hyde story made famous by Jerry Lewis. In that film, Jerry's "evil" alter ego was remarkably like Dean Martin. In Eddie's, the "evil" side was, well, Eddie. The "good" side was a gentle, calmer, thoughtful side, easily embarrassed and modest to a fault. THIS Eddie was spooky to see, because it was a human side. Eddie went human on us, and it paid off. He was on Oprah with tears in his eyes and a new bride. He was hailed for his versatility and characterization (brought to life by spectacular compositing effects,) and he brought dignity to fat people everywhere (Oprah's quote, not mine.)
Now, the Family Channel-version of Eddie is back in more "wholesome" fare, a remake of the Rex Harrison classic (of sorts) Doctor Dolittle. No singing, no Great Pink Sea Snail, and, thankfully, no Anthony Newley eyebrows, just a simple comedy about a man who can talk to animals. Right? Well, not exactly.
In this version, Eddie plays Dr. John Dolittle, a successful M.D. who's ignored his family to build his practice. He and his two partners (Oliver Platt and Richard Schiff) are planning to sell their practice to a huge HMO known as Calnet and really get rich. Then a stray dog named Lucky wanders into the Doctor's life and starts talking to him. Gradually, bunches of other animals start talking to him, and he freaks out, diagnoses them, and learns he loves his family and medicine in the end.
Sound like a scanty plot? That's putting it mildly, folks. This skeleton of a plot is all there is. Director Betty Thomas seems to have chosen to heavily pad this skeleton with the "Babe effect" of having animals move their mouths while they talk in voices by Norm MacDonald, Garry Shandling, Albert Brooks, and Chris Rock. Never once is it explained why the animals are talking to Eddie, or why Eddie can understand them. It just starts and goes from there. It looks good on screen, but it doesn't do a lot for the brain stem.
It also puts the EdMan in a strange position. Eddie is a funny actor. He knows how to act, to throw a wisecrack, to make faces, and use his voice to build characters. Here, though, he's not really allowed to act as much as react, in this case, to animals. All he can do is freak out while he's meeting birds, rats, guinea pigs, and the like. It becomes tiresome as all get-out after a while. And, for a film trying to fit into the "family film" genre, it dips into the old Eddie bag of tricks with what my granny used to call "potty humor." Anal thermometer jokes and other bodily functions play heavy in the humor, and, well, THAT we have seen before.
For all it's obvious faults and glitches, the original was based around a fantasy about a man who wanted to work with animals because he can't fit in with other humans. He wants to learn all the languages animals speak. He travels to find these animals, and he manages to work a few songs in, no matter how labored they are. Here, nothing really fits together, nothing makes a whole lot of sense. It's just talking animals, TAH-DAH, and that's supposed to carry the movie.
I expected more from Thomas, who pulled off one of the miracles of the century by turning The Brady Bunch in on itself and work as a spoof. My Lord, she even made Howard Stern seem personable (dare I say, a good guy?) in Private Parts. It never clicks here with Eddie, I think because he is so handcuffed into what he can do. Think of the "table scene" in Professor. There, it was pretty obvious that director, Tom Shadyac, turned Eddie loose and let him run for a while. Five characters, all Eddie, all going a mile a minute in every different direction. That's Eddie in prime form. B.H. Cop I, same theory. Turn the talent loose a little and magic can happen. Not here. You can't get a shining light in tight quarters. When the voice actors get more laughs than Eddie, you know there's alum in the cake mix.
Kids are gonna love this thing, sure. I mean, what kid doesn't love fart jokes? And, I'm sure it will score some coin, but, if this is the next step in the project known as Reconstructing Eddie, it hinders more than it helps. It takes a lot of the heart out of what Eddie seemed to be trying to accomplish, and it pops a big bubble of inspiration that was growing again after a long pause. Give us more "Mulan-Eddie," where he's high-speed and on target. Otherwise, we might have to look for a new toaster to rebuild.
Image copyright 20th Century Fox.
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