Dumbo movie review & film summary (2019)

All these inevitable comparisons only highlight how inferior “Dumbo” is alongside the best of Burton’s work. And among the recent slew of live-action re-dos of venerable Disney fare—from “Cinderella” to “The Jungle Book” to "Beauty and the Beast"— it will surely end up being one of the least memorable. 

There’s simultaneously too much going on here and not enough. Burton and screenwriter Ehren Kruger (who’s written several “Transformers” movies) have significantly expanded on the beloved 64-minute original feature, adding many more human characters to carry along the story. (Both films are inspired by the novel from Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl.) But they failed to develop those characters beyond a few superficial traits, and Dumbo himself—while an irresistibly sweet and sympathetic figure—enjoys an anthropomorphism that’s head-scratchingly selective.

The film begins at the end of World War I, with veteran Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) coming home to a couple different kinds of families as an understandably changed man. He’s lost a left arm in battle and seen horrors that have shaken him. But he also returns to a daughter and son, Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins), who’ve lost a mother to disease while he was away. And he finds that his circus family – where he was once a famed trick horseman—is a shell of its former self.

Cantankerous circus owner Max Medici (DeVito, with sharp comic timing as always) has sold Holt’s horses to keep the show afloat. Holt now finds himself in charge of the elephants, including one in particular who’s pregnant. But when Mrs. Jumbo gives birth, it’s to a baby boy with plaintive blue eyes and oversized ears who’s immediately shunned and misunderstood for his unusual looks—except for Holt’s sensitive kids, who rush to protect him. (Aspiring scientist Milly is a fine role model for young viewers, and Parker shares her mom Thandie Newton’s quietly assured bearing. But as is the case with all the major characters here, she makes you wish she had a richer role to play.)

But come on. This is “Dumbo.” You know the baby is going to be ripped away from his mama so he can learn to achieve thrilling things on his own. (The early images of their separation, as they intertwine trunks and whimper for each other, may draw a few tears, but “Dumbo” never quite achieves the emotional wallop it seeks.) Milly and Joe figure out that when Dumbo sucks a feather into his trunk, it causes him to leap into the air and eventually fly. But something is just off within the visual effects during this process – something to do with the ear flapping that’s jerky and distracting, and keeps us from being swept up in the grandeur of it all the way Burton surely intended.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7s7vGnqmempWnwW%2BvzqZmq52mnrK4v46drKaan2J%2FcX2Y