Tim Burton decided to remake a movie about an elephant who could fly with his ears. It surprisingly wasn’t as dark as could have been.
Well, this movie does have a bit more weight to it. A father and circus performer named Holt Farrier comes home to his kids after the end of World War I. At the same time, circus ringmaster played by Danny DeVito buys an elephant named Mrs. Jumbo. The elephant is pregnant and soon gives birth to a baby with floppy large ears that the locals nickname “Dumbo.” The kids quickly realize that with help from a feather Dumbo can use his ears to fly, and the circus comes to use the flying elephant as an impossible-yet-possible act. Over time the circus workers come realize that Dumbo and his mom are meant for more than just circus performances and set on a plan to get the elephants a better life.
I guess some people might be curious why I am writing a review on the live action remake on a blog called Anima of Animation. My logic is that (a) this is a remake of a well-known animated movie, and (b) this film does use (as is the norm these days) boastful amounts of CGI for the titular character and special effects. If this means a lot of films are now in contention for a write-up, yeah, pretty much. (Also means someone will have to take a look at the Sonic the Hedgehog movie coming out this year that she found out the other day is in fact coming out this year. But that’s tangential.)
Let’s talk characters.
Blue-eyes Dumbo is the titular character, yet at points in this movie is a non-entity. Elephants are actually one of my favorite animals (I’ve had an elephant plushie key chain since high school). And while Dumbo here is cutely brought to life via the magic of CGI, he doesn’t really matter much in terms of the story.
Well, okay, it depends on how you see Dumbo the character. If he’s just a plot element for the human characters to learn a lesson and get their just desserts, then Dumbo is fine.
But if we are to see Dumbo as a main character that the story revolves around, it’s not really told in that way so the audience can’t absorb it. The ending of the movie doesn’t serve much for Dumbo’s purpose as much as it does to validate the good humans and make them very politically correct, for lack of a better term. I understand why this happen, as animals are not entertainment props but rather creatures with their own agency. (Except the horses apparently, which the circus decides to keep in the end…) It just makes the conclusion a bit boring and mistitled.
The scene where he gets his “Dumbo” name is really clever though. He’s “officially” Jumbo Jr., and the circus puts up a sign with moveable letters that spell (if I recall) “Dear Baby Jumbo Jr.” I don’t know why some humans are such bullies when it comes to the baby elephant, but I really enjoyed Dumbo blasting water at a group of teasers during one of the circus scenes.
The father in this movie is incredibly boring. Coming out of a war should not be a boring character background, yet for him it is. I don’t care much for him or his missing limb. Is that mean? I do feel sorry for him, but a character should never warrant pity over passion, you know?
The father in this movie is incredibly boring. Coming out of a war should not be a boring character background, yet for him it is. I don’t care much for him or his missing limb. Is that mean? I do feel sorry for him, but a character should never warrant pity over passion, you know?
The daughter is a dull fest. She’s into science, like Emma Watson in the live action Beauty and the Beast. But whereas I understood why Emma liked science (her father was an open minded inventor), I don’t get where this daughter gets it from. Her mother passed away due to a deadly flu that was spreading around, so one might guess that maybe she developed interest in the science world for a desire to contribute in the medical field. Nope, no connection, her mom’s just an unfortunate victim of an illness and the daughter just happens to be (boringly) into science. Not that interests have to be inherited from your parents or need to have a traumatic start, but some meat to her interests would have been good.
Plus at the climax of the movie, she tells Dumbo that since he doesn’t need a feather to fly, nor does she need her key necklace. Then she proceeds to toss her mother’s key necklace into the fire at the circus tent.
No. This doesn’t compute. The feather Dumbo uses to fly is not the same thing as a key necklace passed down from her mother. One is a placebo to do something, another is the mom’s necklace that was passed down. It’s not like Mrs. Jumbo had feathers her baby elephant could pluck anyway, it was always more of a good luck charm (and using scientific words, a catalyst) for him to fly than a reminder of his mom. If she had given Dumbo her key necklace to encourage him to fly, but mid-air he loses the necklace and realizes he can fly anyway, that would have been a much better way to show Dumbo’s confidence and the daughter (in a strange way) moving on from her mom’s death.
The brother isn’t much more interesting than his sister, but at least his delivery is much more tolerable.
I enjoyed Danny DeVito as the ringmaster, monkey antics and all. A part of me wishes he could have been the father to the kids. He’d be the zany guy to contrast his down to earth (nicely speaking) kids. He’s much like the father in that he underestimates Dumbo, initally disregards the daughter’s scientific savviness, and comes to realize that maybe animals are not meant for the circus. But you know, it’d be interesting with DeVito, because he knows how to act in interesting scenes.
Then there’s the villain named Vandevere (because yes, Dumbo needed a villain apparently.)
His motivation makes no sense in any context. He wants Dumbo to fly because obviously it’s a spectacle any circus would want. So he makes it happen by keeping Dumbo’s mom at arms (trunk’s?) reach, which makes Dumbo want to fly as he is motivated to find his mother. But then Vandevere wants to kill Dumbo’s mom to make Dumbo sad and potentially stop flying because…?
All of this is happening because Mr. Vandevere didn’t grow up with his father so he feels Dumbo doesn’t deserve his mom. That’s a weak motivation, honestly. He’s evil enough to put horrible horror make-up on Mrs. Jumbo, why couldn’t Dumbo’s flying act be done alongside whatever the mom’s act is? And it isn’t because Dumbo can’t fly when near his mom; the ending of this move prove that.
There is a very funny scene in the climax where the villain is in the watchtower trying to restore the power to Dreamland, but in spite of another person’s warning, Vandevere starts angrily pressing every button on the control panel and things go out of control. He’s like Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, he’s so goofy and over the top but he just can’t help it.
Look, I reviewed Wonder Park recently, and that movie didn’t really have a villain. Dumbo (2019) does. One must question what is going on when a movie, a live action remake no less, uses a villain in this way.
I guess I can say this movie doesn’t rehash the animated version, which following Beauty and the Beast was a mild fear of mine. Some moments are similar; “Baby Mine” is a song here, obviously Dumbo likes feathers, and the idea that Dumbo can fly in an otherwise grounded reality (if the talking mice and crows can only talk to other animals, anyway). Yet some are welcome additions: Burton turned the animated film’s trippy Pink Elephants scene into a circus performance with bubbles, and the concept of Dreamland being a place where the impossible becomes possible is very grand and charming. I’d rather have a remake be too flawed with its changes than be flawed because it didn’t change enough.
As hinted earlier, the ending of this movie has Dumbo and his mom go back to the “Far East” and live in the wild. And Dumbo still willingly chooses to fly around for cinematic poster shots. Again, it’s nice to see them back home, I suppose, but there’s not much gravitas to this ending. It’s not like the human characters came with with Dumbo to see this, or that Mrs. Jumbo was shown captured by poachers at the start and we the audience would want to see her return to the wild. I mean, obviously we would in the real world like to see that because a circus would never be able to fully care for her nor Dumbo. But in a movie like this set pieces and thematic moments should be better established.
I know poaching is a dark topic, but this is a Burton film where a man DIES early on due to a botched circus performance. Giving more weight to the elephants’ story would have helped with their characters and end goals. The animated version had the benefit of some talking animals like Timothy the mouse and the crows who Dumbo could get pep boosts from; he connects with the world around him with some humanness. In this live action movie all Dumbo has are the boring kids, the monotone father, some feathers from unnamed sources, and occasionally eccentric Danny DeVito or the French acrobat lady. It’s not much room to grow Dumbo as a character so he just stays as a plot device.
To close, Dumbo (2019) has a cute elephant in it, but it was always going to be a tall order to make a groundbreaking remake of the animated version. The animated movie itself was never a groundbreaking movie as much as it was a feel-good story about a flying elephant and a reason to put in a song that couldn’t fit into Fantasia. I feel like the live action remake is too long and drawn out. Perhaps if they had cut out some of the first few circus scenes, humanized Dumbo more, got to Dreamland sooner, and established the villain with a more competent backstory and motivation, this film would have worked better. As is, if you’re into circus films like The Greatest Showman, take a watch if you have the time, but it’s not a must-do by any means.
Anima of Animation 