The new sequel provides more of the same. Both movies operate from a clever reversal: Dr. John Dolittle is no longer the man who talks to the animals. He's the man who discovers that the animals talk to him, which makes his life crazy. The laughs are provided by the celebrities providing the voices of the animals that show up at all sorts of inopportune moments to pester Dolittle with their problems and ailments. The result is the reverse of the sickly-sweet anthropomorphizing done in those Disney nature adventures that many of us grew up watching.

In fact, if you're over a certain age (say mid- to late 30s), the Dolittle movies can make you realize that in one respect, today's kids have it much better than my generation did. When we grew up we were constantly being taken to family comedies that we had to pretend to enjoy -- things like the Disney comedies starring Dean Jones or a Volkswagen; Jones was the one that talked -- though they had none of the kids' humor that made us laugh when we were with our friends. Today's family entertainment doesn't shy away from the scatological humor that kids love. It's a silly kick to go to something like "Spy Kids" (one of this year's nicest surprises) and hear a placid computer voice aboard the kids' custom-built spymobile announcing "Flushing your poo" after they use the toilet.

"Dr. Dolittle 2" has a smattering of that type of humor and in its small way it's liberating. You feel like the people who made it have allowed kids to be kids. It ain't Molière but it's a damn sight better than "Herbie Rides Again." And for parents, I imagine that movies they can enjoy with their kids without feeling that they've been exiled to Candyland are something like a small blessing. "Dr. Dolittle 2" can get a little sickly sweet when it's singing the praises of family, though those moments are mercifully brief.

The chief conflict is between Dolittle and his teenage daughter Charisse (Raven-Symoné, a name that sounds like one of the movie's animal characters), who's at the age where she's embarrassed by her family in general and by her father's talent in particular. The resolution of the conflict (which is surprising and rather touching) makes up for the small slack spots it causes earlier on.

	Dr. Dolittle 2 Directed by Steve Carr Starring Eddie Murphy, Kristen Wilson, Raven-Symoné and the voices of Steve Zahn, Lisa Kudrow, Andy Dick, Michael Rapaport, Richard C. Sarafian, Isaac Hayes Print story E-mail story

The plot has Dolittle trying to keep a forest from being destroyed by a lumber company. The key is the presence of an endangered species, a female bear that has no prospective mating partners. Dolittle locates a male bear that has grown up in a circus and the courts give him a month to successfully introduce the animal into the wild and ensure that it will mate with the female.

Both of the Dolittle movies feature a pair of actors giving hilarious voice to an animal couple. In the first one it was Garry Shandling and Julie Kavner as pigeons undergoing marital problems. Here it's Lisa Kudrow as Ava the female bear and Steve Zahn as Archie the circus bear who has to become her alpha male. Their voices are immediately recognizable and call up their screen personas -- which adds to the laughs. Kudrow uses that distinctive delivery of hers, both offhand and as direct as an arrow flying to the target, and Zahn, even without our having a glimpse of him, indulges his talent as one of the movies' most entertaining goofballs.

The gag of Archie is that having been raised in circuses and shows, he has become the ursine version of a Vegas lounge entertainer. When he turns up in the forest he regales the animals that have turned out to welcome him with his version of "I Will Survive." For a while it looks like an empty boast. Archie is so domesticated that as he pads through the wilderness he complains his paws are getting dirty, and when Dolittle rips off a hunk of tree bark to show him the yummy insects underneath he blanches. It's a durable setup and writer Larry Levin and director Steve Carr (taking over from Betty Thomas) score consistent laughs with it.

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