Why is this movie? No seriously, why is this movie called Dumbo? This movie has nothing to do with Dumbo. The first half-hour of the film is a remake of the original but then it becomes a movie about the evils of capitalism and fighting against the big guy. This was released the same year that Disney acquired Fox, so awkward timing there.
This is one of the worst remakes but unlike The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast, I don't outright hate it. Which is bizarre as Dumbo is one of my favorite Disney movies but I'm more baffled by its mere existence.
When watching the film, I live-tweeted some random thoughts and I think it's better to share my thoughts that way than to do the breakdown that I've been using because after a while this film stops being Dumbo.
Let's start with the big one here, Dumbo is not cute in this movie.
Dumbo is creepy looking in the remake of his movie. He looks dead in the eyes and this is a problem as Dumbo is one of the cutest Disney characters of all time. Look at that lil cutie.
D'aww, there's my little guy. Understandably, the crows aren't in the movie and I love the song but there is no way you should put them in a remake of this movie. It hurt not having Timothy but there was a reference to him.
Speaking of the Crows, while they aren't in the movie, the ringmaster at the evil circus (that's a thing!) recites the lyrics before saying this line.
Let's get ready for Dumbo
And they actually got the Let's Get Ready to Rumble guy, Michael Buffer to say that line.
What is this movie? It's a movie set after the first World War and a family dealing with a dad played by Colin Firth who lost his arm dealing with raising his children at a circus run by Danny DeVito. Oh, and his wife died while he was away. Yeah, the remake of Dumbo, a movie that has of the saddest mother/child moments in all of Disney history introduced the dead mom trope into this story.
Oh and speaking of Baby Mine, it's in the movie in the first half-hour and the scene almost comes across as a throwaway moment.
Seriously, it really felt like Burton crammed all the important moments of the original into the first act of the movie before turning this into a movie that had nothing to do with Dumbo. He focuses on that family and I wish he wouldn't have as the girl playing the older sister is so wooden that the CGI Dumbo gave a better performance. I'm sure that she's a nice kid but she did not give the other actors a lot to work with.
And about 40 minutes in, Michael Keaton's character shows up as the villain, which some have described as an evil Walt Disney.
This is hard to ignore as is his circus has a Coney Island feel to it.
And it clicked for me that he may have been going for that when I saw that this character had an exhibit called the Big Bright Future, which looked like something out of Tomorrowland.
I wish. Apparently, he just wants to profit off of Dumbo's ability to fly, which feels like an afterthought in Dumbo's own movie because it focuses so much on the kid characters. Sure, whatever but then why is this called Dumbo?
The circus folks do end up saving Dumbo from Keaton's bad guy and his park goes down in flames. Yeah, Dumbo needed a big climactic setpiece.
Dumbo is a quaint and simple story about a child overcoming a disability that he was born with and learning to use it to make his life better and to show that he has worth. Yeah, maybe that's me reading into it but that's part of why I latched onto Dumbo as much as I did. Dumbo never needed a big action sequence. An action sequence in Dumbo goes against the idea of what this story is.
And this story isn't Dumbo. It has an elephant, it has a circus, it plays Baby Mine and Mrs. Jumbo is in it, barely. Stripping away Timothy, The Crows and Mr. Stork could have worked as you don't need those to focus on what is at the heart of Dumbo. The love of parent and child. Sure, the movie believes that it's focusing on that with Colin Firth's character and his kids by showing he's a dad that messes up but loves his kids but the simplicity of the original is how Mrs. Jumbo loved her son and wanted to protect him, which she does and that's also how we got the origin for why Dumbo is called Dumbo in this movie.
The one thing that I will give this movie is I do like the touch of releasing the animals into the wild at the end and seeing Dumbo and Mrs. Jumbo live out their lives in Africa but that's too little, too late. This movie should've focused on Dumbo and his mother but they became side characters in Dumbo's movie and that is so baffling.
There's not a lot more that I could say about this movie.
I'm serious, there is no reason for this to be a remake as, after the first half-hour, it has nothing to do with Dumbo. A remake that does something different can work, look at the wonderful Pete's Dragon remake but while that does something different, it keeps the heart of the original while keeping the focus on Pete and Elliot. Here though, Dumbo appears but he's not the main character and that's frustrating. Again, I hate the Lion King and Beauty and the Beast remakes more but I'm baffled by this one. Years ago, I reviewed the show Dumbo's Circus and said that was one of the worst things to star Dumbo. I was wrong.
As much as I may have disliked Dumbo's Circus, at least the focus remained on Dumbo. Heck, I have to think the canceled Dumbo II would've been better than whatever this was.
At least Dumbo is still cute there. Honestly, though, Dumbo not being cute is the smallest problem with this movie. The biggest issue is that this film shouldn't be called Dumbo as, after the first half-hour, it has nothing to do with Dumbo. Again, I don't hate but rather I don't understand what was going with this on.
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