Dr. Doolittle 3 (.5 stars)

James: (age 6) 0 stars. It's not really Dr. Dolittle. It's really just a teenager that goes toa ranch and that's the end.
Adam: Zero stars. (No this isn't sweet hearted Amazon where even the worst dreck gets a single star. No. Zero.) This canned ham was a shameless, greedy, ugly gremlin of a movie. Its prequel, Dr. Dolittle had been moderately entertaining, had star charisma and writers who knew how to push kids buttons--with farts and talking animals. This thing however did nothing to deserve the title Dolittle--this movie does bad trade on our desires to see a decent movie based on the previous one. It bore no relation to the original movie. It had none of the original characters. What we got instead of a Eddie Murphy movie was --it was just a tired shameless retread of an already cliche genre of the summer camp movie. Worse than an after-school-special and more obvious than a knock-knock joke and less exciting than a narcoleptic. Oh God, that fucking movie.

Mama: 1 star. This movie felt like a rip-off the entire time. Even the sets of the family home were different. Eddie Murphy obviously wanted nothing to do with it. His character, the Dr. Dolittle of the film titles, was always off stage, or on the other end of the telephone call we the audience can't hear. They traded out the actress playing the daughter from the first two Dolittle movies as well. Only the mother character remained the same (I can't blame her for signing on to this--pickings are slim for 40 year old bi-racial actresses of Hollywood. Halle Berry owns that territory and even she's not getting work.) The scenes in a San Francisco high school had no sense of place, as if the committee of L.A. execs writing this movie had no idea that the public schools of San Francisco might not be populated with snotty queen bees in white tank tops. I believe the black hoodie is the accessory of choice in San Francisco. The actress they came up with for this was cute at least, maybe a pop star I've never heard of, because she gets to sing a song--I guess it's not enough to have a super power for talking to animals, you have to be a singer as well. My most delighted moment was when she showed up at cowboy camp wearing red cowgirl boots and a bright red cowgirl shirt. "Mama would look foxy in that outfit," I announced to everyone. Most disappointing of all was the lack of sexual tension. Why else watch a teen movie? I'm one of those twilight moms--why else watch a teen movie? Give me some vampires and werewolves at this cowboy camp, please.