After his great success as shy chemistry professor Sherman Klump in The Nutty Professor, Eddie Murphy is back in a new comedy - Doctor Dolittle. Murphy stars as the oh-so-talented Dr. Dolittle, a physician who rediscovers a very special gift he has suppressed ever since he was a young boy - the ability to talk to animals.

Who hasn't wished to be able to communicate with a winged or four-legged friend? Well, in his younger years, Dolittle could do just that - until his father found out about it and strictly told

him never to talk to animals again. And so, the youngster restrained his special gift and forgot about it.

Many years later, while driving home one evening, the adult Dr. Dolittle almost runs over a stray dog. The pup walks away, calling the doctor a bonehead. To the puzzled doctor's surprise, his dormant talents from childhood return. Not only can he understand what the dog says, he discovers he can understand other animals as well.

Before long, every kind of animal under the sun - owls, rats, pigeons, horses and guinea pigs -start visiting the doctor for medical advice. This causes great concern for his wife, Lisa, who is worried about her husband's strange new condition. All of a sudden, Dr. Dolittle's life becomes complicated.

The amazing Dr. Dolittle, who learns more than 400 animal languages, was created more than 80 years ago by author Hugh Lofting. A civil engineer by profession, Lofting had longed to be a writer since early childhood. He dreamed up the tales of Dr. Dolittle while fighting in the First World War. Witnessing how harshly the war horses were treated once they were injured, he saw the need for better horse surgery. Dolittle thought that if he could talk to the horses it would be easier to help them.

Whenever he could, Lofting wrote letters to his children and filled them with adventures and illustrations about an eccentric country doctor who had a great love for animals. He named the fantasy hero Dolittle, which was a nickname for his son.

When Lofting returned home after the war, he was amazed to find that his wife had kept all of his letters. She then persuaded him to turn them into a book. In 1920, the first of the 12 Doctor Dolittle novels was published.

Since their overwhelming success many years ago, these colourful adventures have been loved by children around the world. (They've been published in more than 15 languages.) This is not the first time the tales of Dr. Dolittle have been turned into a movie. In 1967, Rex Harrison starred as the affable animal doctor in a musical adventure that had Harrison riding on real giraffes and even on a rhinoceros.

This time, Doctor Dolittle's collection of talking animals has been created by the effects wizards at Jim Henson's Creature Shop who were responsible for the talking animals in Babe.

There's no question that this new film version of Doctor Dolittle has all the right ingredients to charm a new generation of children - both young and old.

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