For their parents, however, there might be a few issues. The single biggest problem in Dolittle might actually be Robert Downey Jr.’s accent. While such a simple choice as a voice change might not seem vital, when it’s your lead character, and the accent doesn’t work, it impacts every scene of the film. Downey speaks in this sort of unplaceable English accent that also makes him sound perpetually hoarse. It makes him difficult to understand at the best of times. In addition, because speaking in such a way would obviously not be easy to pick up on set, it means that Downey’s entire vocal performance appears to have been recorded in ADR, and this is noticeable quite often. Digital animals can get away with having words that don’t match the movements of their mouths perfectly; your human lead can’t.
