Directed by Tim Burton
Starring Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, and Danny DeVito
This is a make-or-break year for Disney, and their relentless production of live-action remakes of their animated classics. There are three due to be released in theaters over the next few months. The first of which, Dumbo, hit theaters this past weekend. If Dumbo is any indication, we might be in for an…average year?
Some perspective…The original Dumbo was only Walt Disney's fourth animated film, released in 1941 and only clocking in at an hour and four minutes. It was partially made to help the studio bounce back from the financial losses of Fantasia, but that's beside the point. It's a pretty short film, with a pretty simple story: A baby elephant with unusually large ears is born at a traveling circus and is immediately considered an outcast, but wins the acclaim of the public when he discovers his big ears give him the ability to fly. So you're probably wondering what Disney and master of the odd Tim Burton do to nearly double the original film's runtime.
The film opens in 1919 as Captain Holt Farrier (Farrell) returns home from World War I to his two children Milly and Joe (Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins). A lot has changed since he's been at war. His wife has passed, and the traveling circus his family calls home has fallen on hard times. Max Medici (DeVito), ringmaster and circus owner, has sold Holt's horses, leaving the former equestrian without an act. Max has a plan to put the circus back on top though. He's recently purchased a prize mother elephant named Mrs. Jumbo, who is on the verge of birth, and he assigns Holt to be their caretaker. Max is ultimately dismayed however, when Mrs. Jumbo gives birth to a baby elephant with unusually large ears.
The typical Dumbo story-beats follow with some alterations. It's toward the middle of the film where things verge into uncharted territory, where V.A. Vandevere (Keaton), master businessman and amusement park owner discovers Dumbo. He charms Max into a partnership, and brings the entire circus to his park Dreamland in New York, with the soul intent on making Dumbo his prized attraction. Meanwhile, the Farrier children do their best to help Dumbo adjust to his new life, and hopefully reunite him with his mother.
First off, the character of Dumbo is so. Damn. Adorable. You can't stop going "Awwww" at him. He's too damn cute, and the CGI work is top-notch. The film on a whole, is fairly average. Everything with Dumbo and his mother is great. It's the stuff with our human characters that sort of fails to captivate. The strained relationship between Holt and his children is clear, but it's underdeveloped. The death of the mother is sort of just a story-note. They don't really grieve her, and there's really not a lot of moments where Holt and the children…well, interact. That's overstating it because they do share a lot of screen time, but I don't think the necessary attention to their character arcs was there. I get that it's a film about Dumbo the Flying Elephant, and they are there to service his story but they don't provide enough forward momentum.
But back to Dumbo. You might be asking, "How much good faith can an Impossibly Adorable CGI Elephant buy you?" For this reviewer, a lot. Again, this is his film, and everything on him is done really well. Your heart breaks when he's in trouble, and you cheer for him when he succeeds. Oh and uh, bring a fair amount of tissues because Tim Burton takes the sadness level up to eleven. Seriously, this film punches your heart in the face at times. I can't believe it but the original Dumbo might be less depressing.
Speaking of Tim Burton, he's always good at building visuals. Everything from the traveling circus to Dreamland in New York looks beautiful. At times what was on screen looked like a storybook come to life, conveying feelings of the classic Disney aesthetic. It's whimsical and eye-catching, as one would expect from Burton. Then there's his buddy Danny Elfman providing the music again. The music is very much in his style, but it really stands out in the scenes where Dumbo flies.
Overall the cast is very nice, but there's no real stand-out among them. Colin Farrell is nice. Eva Green as Collette the trapeze artist is very heartfelt. Danny DeVito as Max is probably the best out of all them. Michael Keaton though…I'm not sure what he's doing here. Jeremy Jahns probably put it best that he's doing a "Johnny Depp in a Tim Burton film" impression. Then there are our two child actors. Nico Parker is definitely the better of the two. She definitely has talent, and carries a lot of scenes, but sometimes she comes off as wooden. Finley Hobbins isn't particularly memorable. He's just kind of there. Really most of them are just kind of there, because the script doesn't give them a whole lot to do. Also, Alan Arkin is in this as a banker, and really it's just like Alan Arkin wandered onto set for a day.
I really do want to applaud Disney and Tim Burton for not sticking so closely to the source-material and not making this a shot-for-shot remake. Unlike the Beauty & The Beast remake, and maybe even more so than The Jungle Book remake, it plays with the premise of the animated-original a lot more. Unfortunately, what they turned in fails to leave any major impact. They could have developed it a lot more. They could have given more time to the story of the Farrier Family. They could have worked more on how both Dumbo and the Farrier children are separated from their mothers, or how Dumbo and Holt both have physical deformities and are outcasts (Holt loses an arm in the war), or how both Dumbo and Collete are treated as glorified show-ponies.
I'm nitpicking at this point I think, but sometimes you have to service your supporting cast just as much as your protagonist. I would still recommend giving the Dumbo remake a chance. While average, I enjoyed it. It's sweet, bewitching, and entertaining. There's some of Tim Burton's brand of gloominess peppered throughout (and some of his darkness) but it's nothing to shield young kids away from. It's a nice film to watch with your family.
Dumbo sort of illustrates what these Disney live-action remakes need to do to justify their existence. It's not afraid to do something different with the original story. If you're gonna make the exact same story just in live-action, well that can be enjoyable for the fans but then why don't we just stick with the animated original? Conversely, if you do change things up, you run the risk of angering fans. But isn't taking risks part of the creative process? Two sides of the coin for you there…and then you just have the other school of thought, which is "Why remake any of these at all when the originals were fine to begin with?" I mean, to be cynical, did Dumbo really need an update?
This year of Disney remakes is off to an average start. Time will tell but what we've seen from Aladdin has been a mixed bag, and we don't have a lot to go on as far as The Lion King. You know I'll be reviewing them both. Anyway, I was supposed to end this two paragraphs ago. I liked Dumbo. Didn't love it. The End.
