Dumbo
I do not remember the last time I watched the animated version of this fable about a circus elephant who could fly, but I’m fairly certain it worked better at 64 minutes than Tim Burton’s 112 minute live-action adaptation here. There is quite a bit I really liked about Burton’s film, however, and it ultimately lands the punches it wants to. But yeah, there are some rough patches to get there.
The 21st century has not been great for Tim Burton as a director. The stop-motion “Corpse Bride” and “Frankenweenie” were winners, “Sweeney Todd” was a marvelous musical adaptation, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” was a sly take on a classic, and “Big Fish” was a very good work of personal filmmaking, but the downs- “Planet of the Apes,” “Dark Shadows,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”- are pretty much low points for the iconoclastic fantasy director. (I have not seen “Big Eyes” yet.) “Dumbo” is kind of in between for him; there are parts in this movie as beautiful as anything the director has ever put on screen, but some of the narrative choices in Ehren Kruger’s script in expanding it to almost two hours really make it difficult to enjoy.
The film is set after WWI, and Max Medici’s (Danny DeVito) travelling circus has gotten smaller and smaller as the audience has started to dry up, which is an unfortunate revelation to Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell), whom has come home from the war with only one arm, and only his kids- Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins) waiting for him; his wife died months ago from illness. Life is hard for everyone, although Max hopes that a pregnant elephant he has recently purchased will turn their fortunes around when her son is born. Unfortunately, Dumbo’s big ears make him a joke to everyone, but one day, Milly and Joe discover something Dumbo can do when he has a feather that could turn everything around when it captures the imagination of audiences, and the eye of a businessman (Michael Keaton) who sees a healthy profit margin in what Dumbo can do.
“Dumbo’s” biggest problem here is that it shifts the focus away from Dumbo and his mother for a lot of the film, and to Holt and his children, whom are equally lonely without their wife and mother here. When the film focuses on Dumbo, this movie soars emotionally and visually, and Joe and Milly find themselves healing by helping Dumbo cope with the loss of his mother early on in the film. And when Keaton’s V. A. Vandevere comes in to buy Max’s circus from him, without honoring any of the promises he made, the film loses emotional focus even more, although it’s hard not to appreciate the irony of Disney making a film about a megalomaniacal businessman buying up its competition and then tossing a lot of what made it special away in light of the Mouse House’s recent acquisition of 20th Century Fox. But while that may be a jab to the ribs by Burton and Kruger that they hope audiences appreciate, it doesn’t make that major part of the story any less interesting to sit through, as the third act of this film gets over-active and boring to watch in that generic blockbuster way that Burton failed at in “Planet of the Apes” and “Alice in Wonderland” before this. The film finds its emotional footing again in the last minutes, but it’s still feels like Disney and Burton missed a great opportunity to reimagine a classic here that was worthy of both of them at their best.
