Dumbo Review

Dumbo is directed by Tim Burton and stars Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Eva Green and Alan Arkin.

This film follows the very well-known story of an elephant with unusually-sized ears who is born into a struggling circus, and goes from being its biggest problem to being its new hit. Then the plot takes a new turn with the arrival of a wealthy entrepreneur who claims he can make even better use of the elephant than the circus can.

I take no pleasure in saying this but this film has no standout performances which I found a shame because with such a large and talented cast the potential feels very real. There are moments where Keaton's and Farrell's characters shine briefly. Besides that, no one grabbed my attention in particular.

I will however praise the CGI Dumbo; what I liked about him was how clearly his eyes could show what emotions he was supposed to be feeling. You could tell when he was happy, sad or even scared. And in terms of CGI, I think that's quite a step forward considering where we were with it about twenty years ago.

The film was written by Ehren Kruger and he maintains that this is a retelling of the same story by retaining several of its pivotal moments, such as how Dumbo loses his mother, the baby mine scene and how Dumbo learns to fly. And of course we see in full colour the pink elephants. Problems begin when you take into account the additions for this new version. They are either replacements of old characters, old characters given a bit more of a personality than they probably had in the original. And the characters who are entirely new to this story are either clichéd, or seem like interesting ideas that are not followed through.

The film was shot by Ben Davis and most of the time the visuals are fine - the standout moment for this is surely the pink elephants scene, as it felt very visually interesting and just about the only thing that contained any of Burton's signature surrealism. It reminded me that this was one of his movies that I was watching.

The score was composed by long time Burton collaborator Danny Elfman, and to add another disappointment his work here is not very impressive or memorable, it's just like: here's some happy- sounding music - feel happy! or sad music - feel sad! If the music has any standout moments it's from the rendition of the baby mine song. I thought it was done in a way that was respecting the original while also not being a full-on imitation.

But the main score is made all the more disappointing by the fact that so many of Elfman's best-known works are the themes he wrote for Burtons films, and they are usually memorable and in their own way unique. I don't know what happened here, but I don't like it.

Here is my major flaw with this film - why is it being directed by someone like Tim Burton? This feels like it could have been directed by anyone and it's directed by a man with one of the most unique styles of directing ever. And it's rarely on display here. It feels like a waste of a very talented director. I hope something like this never happens again.

My conclusions here are, that Dumbo has a talented but mostly wasted cast, a script that wants to please fans both old and new, and yet give us a new story. And a very unfortunate, uninspired score from someone who is very often a great composer. And that's before I even mention the lack of style from the director, most disappointing.
             
Having taken all my pros and cons into account, I'm going to give Dumbo...
 
D

Thank you for reading.