A Cinderella story: Christmas Wish - 2019

 The opening credits in music, with people dancing in Christmas pajamas sets the mood for the movie. 

Kat is treated like a servant by her stepsisters, they give her all their Christmas bags to carry and also their milkshakes (I think) until she falls on her back and they end up in her face. Joy posts it on her vlog, while popular rich Dominick is the only one who asks if she’s ok. The blond girl blames her for ruining her shoes and Kat actually apologises! Really, what alternate universe is this?

Kat works as a Christmas elf, and she meets the new Santa, Nick. 

Kat writes the songs, and Kat and her friend, the other ‘elf’ Isla dance and sing them for the children.

Kat’s dad died and that woman Deirdra has control of all her money until she turns 18, which will be in four months (she’s 17???)

For now, Kat does all the chores and more.

When they find out that Kat’s dad, Jason Decker, was a friend of super rich Mr Wintergarden (Dominick’s father) they steal her snowball and use it to get an invitation to the big party. Only thing is, Mr Wintergarden sends for Mrs Decker and Kathrine. Deirdra manages to get one more invitation saying she has two daughters, so we all know how this will go. Still, Santa-Nick gives Kat an invitation personally, though of course he does not tell her that he’s Dominick. Not yet.

He does it one or two days later, actually, but when she learns that, she won’t tell him who she is, probably because still embarrassed by that vlog post.

 … sigh, his face was all covered with a beard, being Santa, but hers was not!

Isla makes her a dress for the gala and she brings it home… and of course they find it, Joy takes her dress and Deirdra burns her invitation.

Dominick calls her to meet his friends, a boy takes off her wig and everyone recognises the girl in that humiliating video Joy posted of her.

The others mock her and she runs away. 

Kat finds the snowball in Joy’s bag, they fight for it and it breaks.

In the commotion, they lose the letter Mr Wintergarden sent to Deirdra and Kathrine and now she can’t let them take her name as well, so Isla helps her get in.

She enters as an elf, though, and ends up on stage during a dance she doesn’t know. Then they have her sing in a new dress Isla made for her.
Dominick finds her before Deirdra can, so she sings on stage. Dominick introduces her to his father and she clears the misunderstanding on who she is and who Joy is.

Deirdra tells her her inheritance is gone, so Mr Wintergarden has them escorted out and offers Kat an apartment and the chance to fulfil her dreams.

Kat accepts, then dances with Dominick and they kiss, and it’s the happy end.

Kat - Laura Marano

Isla - Isabella Gomez

Dominic - Gregg Sulkin

Deirdra - Johannah Newmarch

Joy - Lillian Doucet-Roche

Mr Wintergarden - Barclay Hope

A perfect Christmas List - 2014

 Sara Edwin is a writer, author of children’s books. She has one coming out about Christmas, with protagonist her usual mouse. She goes home early for Christmas because her father Tim called her and begged her: her grandma sprained her ankle after a fall. Sara has a difficult relationship with her mom. Now grandma can’t move or tire herself. She had a list made of all the things she wanted to do to have a perfect Christmas, and suggests Sara and her mom might do it instead. 

For some reason a doctor visits grandma at home after she’s home, released from the hospital, and of course this Dr Read is roughly Sara’s age and handsome.

He talks with grandma Evelyn about her moving out of her house, since she can’t live alone in a place with stairs, but her daughter Michelle mistakes the little she overheard and thinks Evelyn only has a week to live. So she wants to make her last days happy and agrees to do her list with Sara. Michelle actually asks Sara, even says please, so she agrees.

Even if Michelle still resents the fact that Sara didn’t go to Harvard to draw and write children’s books, they manage to bake good cookies. Next on the list is to have a real Christmas tree, and cut it down themselves - poor tree :’( - there are no farms nearby so they sneak out at night with a chainsaw to cut a piece of the town’s Christmas tree and then decorate it themselves.

Next on the list is to write the perfect Christmas cards, and Sara now notices it’s the same story of her last-year book, to bring the family together by performing a special list of holiday activities.

Sara gets a date with the doctor, to go skating. It also turns out next on the list is ice-skating. So Sara ends up skating with him while her mom watches from the side. She tries it by herself, but she can’t skate.

Next is to do a photo on Santa’s lap, since Sara was scared of Santa as a child. Number 9 is to give something, to do something for others, for charity, so they dress like Santas in short skirts and raise money for the children’s shelter.

Instead of giving them the money, they buy gifts for the children. So now Sara realises the doc’s plan for Christmas were to cook for the homeless children.

Michelle gives her ring to a little girl born unable to hear or speak so her parents didn’t keep her… well, that’s what I heard but it’s a bit too much, it can’t be, who would give away their daughter? And by the way, is it legal? 

Moving on, they invite everyone home for Christmas and Michelle finally learns that Evelyn has plans to move to a small place at a country club, not dying. So, everyone’s happy, the doctor kisses Sara and it’s the end.

Sara - Ellen Hollman

Michelle - Beth Broderick

Brandon (the doc) - Aaron Hill

ITA la lista di Natale

 

Single all the way - 2021

 Not too bad but nothing special either, a bland Christmas movie like many many out there.

Peter has finally found a boyfriend and has been with this cardiologist Tim for almost four months now and was going to bring him home to meet his family, then he learns that he’s married. To a woman. So Peter asks Nick, his best friend for years, to go home with him and pretend to be his boyfriend. Nick doesn’t want to lie for ten days to people he knows and love, so when Peter’s mom, who wants to be called Christmas Carole, says she got him a blind date, Nick approves. Now they cannot go on with the fake-boyfriend plan. Still, Peter has fun, and this James is handsome and nice. 

Both Peter’s dad and Peter’s sister’s two daughters think Peter should be with Nick and tell Nick so. 

Nick is actually spending a lot of time with the family, more than Peter does.

Peter has a good time on his second date too, but came home missing his family, so he tells Nick he’s thinking of moving back home, leaving Los Angeles, and Nick doesn’t know what to say to that. Still, the whole family is plotting to force them to do stuff together to make them realise they’re a perfect couple, so they’re helping Aunt Sandy with her little theatre problem, and then dad suggests Peter uses Nick as model for his new campaign. When Peter has a third date with James, his family tries to sabotage it and the girls force Nick to admit he’s in love with Peter, which he does. Then the girls force Peter to admit it too, only he’s always been scared that it might not work out and then he’d lose him completely.

Sandy’s show is a success, and James sees Nick and Peter together and understands they’re made for each other.

Nick tells Peter he’s in love with him, and Peter is in shock and tells him he wants to move back near his family. Nick takes that as a rejection, of course, and plans to leave, he’s all packed and everything, but he stops for one last job, to paint a shop for sale.

It’s James that makes Peter understand that he should be with Nick, so he hurries home, and then to the airport, but luckily he sees Nick’s car. They talk, Nick tells him he bought the shop for him, to sell plants like he always wanted, using his savings. Peter finally confesses he’s in love too, they clear up their misunderstandings and kiss, and finally get together. 

The family is very happy.

Peter - Michael Urie

Nick - Philemon Chambers

James - Luke MacFarlane

Harold - Barry Bostwick

Lisa - Jennifer Robertson

Aunt Sandy - Jennifer Coolidge

Carole - Kathy Najimy

Kevin - Dan Finnerty

ITA single per sempre?

The Christmas Chronicles - 2018

 We see a family’s past Christmases from 2006 to 2017, then present 2018 sees the family without the father. The little girl is almost 11, Kate, and her brother Teddy… luckily has no heart to tell her theres no Santa. She sneaks out to follow his brother and films him stealing a car with his friends, but she doesn’t rat him out to mom. On Christmas Eve, mom has to go to work, to the hospital, and orders Teddy to stay home with Kate.

Kate watches all videos and sees an arm that she’s sure belongs to Santa so she wants to film him again and together with her brother they make it. There’s also the sleigh and she jumps in. Teddy follows her. When she touches him, Santa is shocked mid-flight, she falls down and is of course saved, and they almost hit a plane. The sleigh crashes down, the bag full of gifts is lost, they’re stranded in Chicago, and when people lose the Christmas spirit bad things happen, disasters in the world. Santa also lost his magic hat so he can only walk. In a diner, he asks for a drive but nobody believes him, and they have to flee They take a car, that had already been stolen, and there’s a car race against the police while Kate finds the reindeers. Santa is arrested while the kids ride flying reindeers in search of the elves to save Christmas.

The kids find the bag and Kate enters it, and it’s huge inside and she finds the elves.

Santa starts a concert in his cell - he still has enough magic to come up with the presents he wants from his empty pockets … :)

Some criminals kidnap Teddy and take his bag of presents, but there’s coal in every box. Then elves come out, lots of them, and the criminals flee in a panic. The elves give Santa another hat, after repairing the sleigh, and they’re all back together.

They have merely an hour until dawn, though, so the kids help, Teddy rides the sleigh and Kate reads the addresses and gives the presents to Santa. From State to State they do it all.

The elves too help deliver the presents.

At dawn, the kids are back home and Santa gifts Teddy his hat - he didn’t really need it, he’s Santa and magical on his own. 

Home is all decorated and mom is happy.

Santa - Kurt Russell

Teddy - Judah Lewis

Kate - Darby Camp

Claire - Kimberly Williams-Paisley

and

Mrs Claus - Goldie Hawn

ITA Qualcuno salvi il natale

Christmas land - 2015

 Glinda created a holiday village, Christmasland. 25 years later, her granddaughter Jules works in marketing, has just been promoted and plans to stay put in New York. Her attorney boyfriend looks at all the mail she ignored and sees a third and last message that informs her that she inherited ChristmasLand after her grandma’s death. She goes to sign all the papers, with every intention to sell it.

She says so to the local attorney Tucker, to his uncle, to some local ladies, but when a little girl calls her an angel, sure that she’ll reopen the place, she says yes.

She still thinks she’ll sell it after a couple of weeks, to someone who will keep it open.

Her New York boyfriend Mitchell comes to ChristmasLand to see the place and find a buyer.

Tucker and Mitchell went to law school together, but don’t like each other and are rather opposite.

Mitchell found a buyer right away, and this Mason speaks of how much he loves it and offers her 1.7 millions, and Mitchell convinces her and she signs. Then a developer comes to see the place, with plans to sell the lots and change the place in just a few years.

She yells at Mitchell and breaks up with him, then goes to Mason but can only get an offer to buy it back if she can raise 1.3 millions (with the 1.7 he gave her, he’d sell it for 3 millions). 

When Tucker sees the contract, he is appalled, he scolds her for not showing it to him before, and tells her there’s no way out of it, so she has to confess to the townspeople.

Through her contacts, she can raise 850.000$ easily, she only has to sell that company’s coffee in their bars, but still needs 450.000.

Thing is, she has no time because Mr Mason wants the money before Christmas. The town puts together their savings and give it all to her, and she has to insist that she’ll give it back… really???

This is going too far… and also, she has Mason tear up the contract, was it not filed yet? 

I think they should have had a new contract to buy it back.

Anyway, now she says she won’t ever go away, she’ll keep ChristmasLand open forever… and of course she kisses Tucker, saying this is now her home and won’t go back to New York… what a load of… syrupy nonsense.

Jules - Nikki DeLoach

Tucker - Luke MacFarlane

Mitchell - Jason-Shane Scott

Glinda - Maureen McCormick

Mason - Richard Karn

ITA il paese di natale

48 Christmas wishes - 2017

 The children are rather cute and nice, and I think this would be a funny, nice movie for children to watch with their family. Only thing is, there’s not only fun but also the serious point of a father being dead, a child who doesn’t remember him and a daughter that has not accepted his demise, with the mother that tries her hardest to move on and give the family a happy life without him.

There’s a single mom (her husband died) with a very agreeable son and a teenage daughter she does not know how to relate to .

At the North Pole, all the Elves - who look like children but are not human, they’re elves - work hard to read all the wishes and build all the toys. Santa thinks things are changing: “are they getting what they actually need? Happiness levels are way down. Getting what you want doesn’t make you happy if you don’t have what you need”.

There are three elves in the mail room, Sammy and Cam who love their job, and frustrated Mindy who wanted to be a builder. When Cam wants to play, Mindy accidentally burns an entire bag of letters, they lost the withes from the city of Minnedoza, 48 wishes, so Mindy and Cam go out to the human world to get the wishes directly from the source. They are totally unprepared, but they meet Blake who gets the true story out of them and then offers to help them.

He gives them clothes, takes them home where Mindy tidies his room, then takes them to his school where they work hard to collect all the children’s wishes.

They finally think they got them all, but they never thought of asking Blake’s mom. She wants her family to have a happy Christmas, but that can’t be built. 

Blake wore the Santa costume to help them get a wish and was reminded of his father who died six years ago so he doesn’t remember him.

Still, that brings the family together and fulfils Laura’s wish.

From this moment on it becomes touching, with Laura finding the last letters that her husband wrote to them all, that’s not fun, it brings tears. 

Santa praises his three elves because only them could have fulfilled Laura’s wish, and asks them to take part in his new initiative, to infiltrate elves among the humans to learn their wishes and maybe fulfil them all year long.

The end credits show a gag reel. The children were really rather cute :)

Laura - Madeline Leon

Blake - Liam MacDonald

Emma - Elizabeth Ellsworth

Mindy - Clara Kushnir

Cam - Ethan Yang

Sammy - Maya Franzoi

Santa - Paul Dick

ITA 48 desideri di Natale

Fantastic Beasts: The crimes of Grindelwald - 2018

 Not bad. 

Grindelwald is in prison in America, after what happened in the first movie. They transfer him to London but on the way it is revealed that he changed place with a guard who took his side, Abernathy. Grindelwald escapes.

Newt has a ban on international travels after what happened in New York. Dumbledore sent him there, and now he tells him that Credence, still alive, is in Paris and Newt must find him.

Queenie and Jacob come to London. Tina is dating someone else because she read in a paper that he was engaged to Leta Lestrange, while actually it’s his brother Theseus.

Jacob remembers everything, but now Newt can see that Queenie enchanted him to get him to marry her. He does love her, but is worried for her because their union is against the law.

Newt lift the enchantment. When Queenie leaves, Newt and Jacob go to Paris where she went, because Tina is there. Credence is forced to work in a freak circus. He wants to escape with Nagini, a Maledictus, a girl forced by a blood curse to become a giant snake until one day she won’t be able to transform back. 

Grindelwald’s people are looking for Credence too, and also Yusuf Kama and Tina.

Grindelwald wants him because he says Credence is the only one that can kill Dumbledore.

Newt pays 50 galleons for an illegal portkey to France. Credence goes to see Irma thinking she’s his mother, but she was just a servant.

Grimson has been sent by the English Ministry. His task is to kill him, but he kills Irma instead. The Obscurus attacks him but Grimson’s shield resists. He killed Irma on purpose, under Grindelwald’s orders.

Kama imprisons Jacon and Newt with Tina, but Newt’s stick-insect picks the lock freeing them.

Kama says either Credence dies or he will.

Travers of Magical Law Enforcement doesn’t like Dumbledore, but Dumbledore says he “can’t” fight Grindelwald, because they were “closer than brothers”. (btw, why is Grindelwald so white if they’re roughly the same age?Whey they’re shown as younger, they seemed kids the same age).

Queenie could not find Tina but Grindelwald’s woman ally finds her. He offers her a world where they can love freely, whoever they want.

The safe house Dumbledore told Newt about is Flamel’s house. Jacob sees that Queenie is at the Lestrange tomb in Flamel’s crystal ball. 

Yusuf’s story: a Lestrange imperiused him mother into going with him, leaving her husband and son. She died giving birth to Leta. Lestrange remarried and Corvus was born.

To protect him from Kama’s revenge, they sent Corvus away to America, and Yusuf is sure that is Credence, but Leta says she killed Corvus as a child. She exchanged babies because Corvus wouldn’t stop crying, so the real Corvus died when the ship they were on sank. Leta doesn’t know who the baby was, at the time she was a child too and didn’t know him.

Now they all find themselves against lots of purebloods come to hear Grindelwald’s words.

He speaks like a great orator, then sends his followers away to spread his word. Credence goes to him because he says Grindelwald knows who he is. Queenie joins him too.

Leta dies to make them escape.

Flamel comes to help them stop Grindelwald’s sort-of-white-fire that would otherwise destroy Paris. Jacob and Nagini both cry, now alone after “losing” their loved one.

The Scamander brothers hug each other. 

Newt’s niffler got Grindelwald’s jewel with the drops of his and Albus’ blood. Their blood pact, when they swore not to fight each other. If Albus can destroy it, then he will be able to fight him.

Queenie and Credence live with Grindelwald now, and Grindelwald calls Credence Aurelius Dumbledore.

The end.

Newt - Eddie Redmayne

 Grindelwald - Johnny Depp

Albus - Jude Law

Jacob - Dan Fogler

Queenie - Alison Sudol

Tina - Katherine Waterstone

Leta - Zoë Kravitz

Theseus - Callum Turner

Credence - Ezra Miller

Nagini - Claudia Kim

Young Grindelwald - Jamie Campbell Bower

Back to the future - 1985

 It’s great, I love this trilogy. My favourite movie has always been the third, but all three are great because it’s one story. And a great story. Fantastic. (and it all happens on the same day, for all three movies the “present” is the same day). Great, absolutely brilliant.

It’s 1985 and Marty is again late for school, and his band is rejected because their modern music is too loud, and his father never amount to anything and he thinks his mother was born a nun… (despite having produced three children…) His dad is also a real pushover for bully Biff, and now Marty can’t take the car tomorrow because Biff crashed it.

Doc asks Marty to meet him at night at an empty parking lot to reveal to him what he’s been working on.

Marty records everything like Doc wants, while dog sends his Delorean car with his dog Einstein to hit 88 miles per hour and into the future one minute.

To show him how to program it, Doc puts in the date November 5, 1955, the day he invented time travel.

The car is electrical but runs on plutonium. A group of Libyan Nationalists wanted Doc to build them a bomb but instead he took all the plutonium they had stolen.

Doc plans now to travel to the future, but the Libyans arrive and shoot Doc. To escape, Marty takes the car and escapes, speeding up to 90 so he goes back in time.

He ends up in a barn, but thinking he’s an alien the man there shoots at him, so he drives away. Until it doesn’t move anymore so he hides it. 

The place is Hill Valley. Marty finds himself next to his dad in time to witness a scene like the one in the future, with young Biff bullying young George, and George letting him because he’s bigger.

George is also a peeping tom, spying on Lorraine, but Marty “saves” him when he’s about to be run over by a car, getting hit himself. This changes a lot, because that was how his parents met, and now Lorraine is all over Marty instead, after her dad brought him into the house.

Marty finds Doc’s house and talks him into believing his story. Eventually Doc does  believe him and is quite ecstatic that one of his inventions worked!!!

It’s too much power the car need, though, and other than plutonium, rather hard to come by, they’d need a bolt of lightning: “unfortunately you never know when or where it’s ever gonna strike”… oh yes they do, Marty still has the flyer on when the town clock stopped working after being hit by lightning. At 10.04 pm next Saturday night.

“Next Saturday night we’re sending you back to the future!” …

Doc tells him of how his interacting with people might have serious consequences, and point in fat his brother is already fading from the picture he has, because he prevented his parents meeting and falling in love.

So Marty goes to George and introduces him to Lorraine but she only has eyes for Marty.

So Marty sticks to George to make sure they kiss like they should. He also learns he’s more like his dad than he knew.

Since George likes science fiction, Marty makes him a night visit with loud Van Halen music in headphones and his radiation suit on to convince him.

George’s first try at asking Lorraine out is very awkward and Biff ruins it.

Marty hits him and runs away with the first wood-skateboard anyone has ever seen. Lorraine asks Marty to ask her to the “Enchantment under the sea” ball, so he does, than makes a plan with George. At 9pm he will find the couple in the car and will intervene to “protect and save” Lorraine from him, but then he’s a little bit late.

Biff arrives first, and has his three friends take Marty away while Biff wants Lorraine, so when George arrives, it’s Biff he meets.

Biff tells him to go away and he’s scared of him, but then Lorraine calls for his help, repeatedly, so George tries, but Biff is strong. Still, when Biff throws Lorraine to the ground, George punches Biff really hard and saves Lorraine and takes her inside to the ball.

Marty had been locked inside the car of the band, and to open it the guitarist hurt his hand, so Marty takes his place to play some music so that his parents can dance and kiss. Then Marty hurries to Doc. He gives him a letter where he wrote that he would die that night, but Doc rips it apart. 

It’s a real adventure to the last second to make it work, but Marty does return to the future (which is his present), and he arrives right on time to see Doc shot, too late to warn him, but Doc didn’t die because he taped the letter back together and wore a bullet proof vest.

So now he makes his much wanted trip to the future.

In the morning Marty wakes up to a totally different reality. His parents are so sure of themselves, his siblings too, and he has a great car and George even published his first science fiction book.

Everything’s great, but then Doc comes back - the car no longer runs on plutonium, he modified it in the future - and tells Marty and Jennifer that they must save their children. So all three of them enter the car and go back to the future, flying this time.

The end. For now.

P.s. fun fact, Lorraine thinks his name is Calvin Klein because it was written all over his underwear; in Italian she calls him Levis, Levis Strauss…

Marty McFly - Michael J. Fox

Doc Emmett Brown - Christopher Lloyd

Lorraine - Lea Thompson

George - Crispin Glover

Along came Polly - 2004

 Nice, not exceptional, some gags were rather low, but I might even watch it again. I love Jennifer Aniston.

Plot:

Reuben Feffer is about to get married, and since he “analyses risks for a living” he’s full of worries: do not wax the floor or people might fall (well, his best friend Sandy does fall down, so here he has a point), no candles to avoid fire hazards, allergies and stuff like that. 

Sandy was once in a movie but didn’t do much after that. He does ask Reuben if he’s sure about the marriage, but he has no doubts and is sure she’s the perfect woman for him.

Reuben’s boss Stan makes the speech. They get married, everything seems lovely; they go on their honeymoon; a nude guy offers scuba-diving trips to both but Reuben refuses to go. When it’s time for her to be back, Reuben goes to meet her, but finds them having sex. She says she’s now too confused and wants to stay on the island to think about it, while the man Claude says it’s love at first sight between them. Reuben goes right back home.

Stan gives him a new job to sell insurance to a famous guy Leland who is a dangerous-sports nuts.

Sandy tells him that Lisa looked terrified in their wedding video and insists Reuben goes along to a party. Polly is a waitress there and approaches him because they went to school together at some point. Polly Prince. He thinks it’s destiny they met each other.

There’s a disgusting scene about sweat and stuff, oh my, I had to cover my eyes for a moment.

Reuben asks Polly out, and let’s remark on the point that he saw already that she wasn’t neat like him, picking up her opened chocolate (or something) bar from the ground and all that.

Polly chose an ethnic restaurant, where the spices won’t be good for him and she eats with her hands. His stomach feels awful but he keeps on eating. They go to her place where he badly needs the bathroom… and I guess it’s supposed to be funny: he makes a lot of farting noises so he turns on the shower to cover it, then sees there is no paper so he uses a towel and actually tries to flush it, flooding the room and the truth comes out. 

Still, she calls him back and takes him to an Indian restaurant where they meet his parents and his mom spill everything about Lisa. It only happened two weeks ago.

Next she takes him to a salsa club but he can’t dance and is annoyed when she dances with a friend, so she bluntly asks him to come clean and tell her what kind of guy he is, what he likes. So he tells her but they still end up at her place kissing.

While making out, he spanks her like Sandy suggested but it’s weird.

The cutest scene is the one when she can’t find her keys so he tells her to use the key finder he bought her. She’s all “I don’t need it” but still uses it to find them :)

Reuben is still jealous of Javier when they dance until he tells him that he’s gay. Then Reuben asks for salsa lessons and then dances at the club… it was really weird… and when they’re back at his apartment, Lisa is back so Polly leaves them to talk.

Lisa is very apologetic and sounds sincere… but still.

He goes on a boat trip with Polly and crazy Leland, and she accidentally sees that he ran the numbers on his computer to determine if he should be with Lisa or Polly, and it says that Lisa is the greater risk while Polly is the safest one, despite what he wrote about her: no career, flaky, likes ethnic food and is afraid of commitment. Probably because her father had a complete second family somewhere. So she breaks up with him, saying she has no intention of moving to the suburbs and getting married. She plans to leave the city even, but he later understands she’s what he wants so he asks Sandy to play his part at a job meeting (Stan did not like that idea) and he ran to Polly.

She’s already in the taxi but she left her pet ferret behind so she comes back for it. They talk and he makes a compelling case about loving her, and she stays with him. And he’s a lot more adventurous now…

Reuben - Ben Stiller

Polly - Jennifer Aniston

Sandy - Philip Seymour Hoffman

Lisa - Debra Messing

Stan - Alec Baldwin

Claude - Hank Azaria

Leland - Bryan Brown

Javier - Jsu Garcia

Dolittle - 2020

 It was cute. Not extraordinary, but not bad.

Dr Dolittle can talk to animals and because of this he became so famous “even the Queen on England called on him”. She gifted him a big sanctuary for all creatures. He loved Lily the explorer, and together they travelled to save animals, until she left and died at sea. He retreated from the world in his grief.

Stubbins is supposed to hunt animals like his uncle, but he can’t shoot the ducks and is so sad when he hurts a squirrel, he follows Poly the parrot and brings the squirrel to Dolittle’s sanctuary. 

After some attempting by Dolittle at throwing everyone out, young Lady Rose enters saying he’s been summoned by the Queen because she’s ill and if she dies he loses the property of the sanctuary. Stubbins can now give him the squirrel to save.

When he sees the Queen, she’s been poisoned by nightshade and the only antidote comes from the Eden Tree. He leaves his stick-insect to spy and leaves on a boat with Stubbins and his animal friends. His first stop is the Monteverde island, full of bandits and more importantly King Rassouli, Lily’s father. John wants Lily’s journal, but that’s all the king has left of her; they are captured, John should be eaten by Barry the tiger, but they escape. Dr Blair Mudfly, after failing to cure the queen, has been sent to make sure Dolittle never returns, so now he steals Lily’s journal and sails for the Eden Tree.

Well, he didn’t really have to find the tree, he only had to stop Dolittle from taking the fruit of the Eden Tree back to the queen, that was all, he didn’t need to find it himself. I guess he just wanted to ‘beat Dolittle’ at it.

Anyway, king Rassouli admits they both miss Lily and that even if he hates John and would like him dead, Lily loved him and would want him to go on, so he frees John and gives him a boat.

The whales find Blair and they follow him to a secret island, to a cave where a fire dragon guards the tree. The dragon too has lost its mate, so they understand each other.

The dragon is also in pain for having eaten too many armours, and even a bagpipe, but feels much better after John’s help.

John can now get a fruit and hurries back to the queen.

They’re just at the last second, they were already declaring the queen dead, when John and his friends arrive, and Stubbins gives the fruit to the queen and she comes back alive, the almost-murderer is arrested and Stubbins is officially John’s apprentice like he wanted.

Dr John Dolittle - Robert Downey Jr

King Rassouli - Antonio Banderas

Blair - Michael Sheen

Lord Badgley - Jim Broadbent

Queen Victoria - Jessie Buckley

Stubbins - Harry Collett

Poli (the parrot) - Emma Thompson

Barry the tiget - Ralph Fiennes

Lady Rose - Carmel Laniado

Lily Dolittle - Kasia Smutniak

other animals: Rami Malek, Selena Gomez, Marion Cotillard, Tom Holland, John Cena.