Dumbo (2019)

Director Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" may have fallen short of critics' and audiences' expectations but its financial success kicked off the live action remakes that we have been seeing for almost a decade now. On the occasion of the release of "Alice in Wonderland", a friend of mine desired to see Burton's take on "Dumbo". I did not like the idea (even though I was interested in Burton making a short animated remake of the "Pink Elephants" sequence). Tim Burton is a visual storyteller and the original "Dumbo" is known for its heart and story. The combination of the two didn't make sense to me in 2010 and after seeing the finished product, I feel justified. Burton did what he does best and so fans of his films will be treated to a visual experience but this remake was lacking in heart. There are additional factors that caused "Dumbo" to underperform.

Dumbo can represent anyone who is an outcast but in an effort to find some originality for this new take, the filmmakers forgot to make that message a priority. The basic story of the original movie is told in the first half of the remake and this is some proof that the focus of the movie is not on Dumbo but other characters. The filmmakers wanted to explore how the world would react to a flying elephant but that automatically puts Dumbo as a protagonist in the backseat. I felt the film was confused as to who the main protagonist was. Dumbo had to compete for screen time against Holt and his daughter, Milly. All three had journeys they were on in the movie but successful films are very clear as to whom the main character is and then supporting characters not only support the protagonist but also add variety and fill out the rest of the story. In "The Wizard of Oz" for example, Dorothy doesn't have to compete with Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion for the audience's attention because all four have the same goal of getting to the wizard and having their dreams come true. Dumbo, Holt and Milly all have different goals and the film's structure felt disorganized as it tried to balance the three paths that each character was on. Maybe the filmmakers were worried about the fact that their main protagonist can't talk and were trying to make up for that. That doesn't make much sense to me because if Pixar can win an Oscar and touch audiences with a main character that has little to no dialogue, why not the Disney Studio? On another subject, I want to know why Holt has two kids. Joe had nothing to contribute to this story because Milly does it. If there are secondary characters that add nothing to the story, they shouldn't be in the movie. There were other flaws in the narrative structure of "Dumbo". Every movie has rising action leading to a climax such as when Dumbo, in the original film, flies without the feather. This plot point is a peak at which everything else in the show has been building up to. The rising and falling action in the live action remake resembled less of a mountain and more like a hill. The film has a climax but no climatic high point or definite peak within that climax. Plus, the scene with Vandevere throwing a tantrum that burns down his whole park is pretty silly to watch. The animated film has a scene with the ringmaster struggling to come up with a "climax" to his latest elephant act and it feels almost symbolic of the filmmakers trying to create this remake. If only they had listened to Uncle Walt whispering in their ears as they slept. The finished product seems to suggest that the filmmakers were distracted by other aspects of the show and that took the focus away from the story. Especially with the ending of the movie, Tim Burton appears to be listening to what others are telling him to do instead of doing what feels right by the story. Creative freedom is important to the success of filmmaking.

One such distraction that Tim Burton himself is responsible for was the visuals. The original film was made very cheaply in order to make up for financial losses to the Disney studio because of World War II in Europe. The filmmakers focused more on story and heart in 1941 than how the film looked. A mother and her son were at the center of the animated film and this decision made the show immortal. There was an attempt to replicate that in the live action version but it fell quite short with much of the attention going towards the visuals and other aspects. You can't really blame Burton for this because that's the kind of filmmaker he is. The visual effects as a whole were pretty impressive. The elephants were quite believable and Dumbo himself was a perfect mixture of cute and realistic. I think the filmmakers found the great place in the movie for their version of the Pink Elephants sequence. I thought the "No alcohol around the baby" line was a nice touch. I also appreciated the full-scale Casey Jr. with his number 41. On the other hand, it was important that the audience's disbelief be suspended because of the subject matter. It is easy to accomplish that when your main character is an animated baby elephant that can fly but a photorealistic baby elephant doing the same thing was obviously going to be a challenge. The filmmakers were pretty successful at making us believe that an elephant can fly in a live action movie until they put humans on Dumbo's back. That made me question what I was watching on the screen.

It seems like Tim Burton organized a "Batman Returns" reunion by making "Dumbo". This time however, Michael Keaton is playing the villain and Danny DeVito is playing a good guy. Eva Green has also worked for Burton before. The casting of announcer Michael Buffer felt like a distraction. The reason why his presence works in the "Rocky" franchise is because he is a boxing announcer, not a circus ringmaster. The use of the original songs was handled quite well until you got to the end credits. While nothing can top the original version of "Baby Mine", Sharon Rooney's on screen version was respectable. It was Arcade Fire's version during the end credits that completely failed because it sounded like a Beatles version of the song. I have been trying to think of other songs that are so immortal that other artists cannot cover them. Nothing comes to mind right now but the 1941 film version of "Baby Mine" is so powerful that not even Michael Crawford in 2001 could match it.

Most of the Disney live-action remakes/sequels over the past decade have failed to completely satisfy me. "Cinderella" worked because despite the fact that its plot is practically a story motif, the film was very original and only included a few references to the original source material. "Christopher Robin" was also successful in my eyes because it was true to the spirit of its source material and had amazing performances. "Dumbo" is the first of four remakes/sequels in 2019 and I think things are beginning to get out of control. Some are saying that the shortcomings of "Dumbo" are not Tim Burton's fault. I would agree. The script had problems and Burton was not the right choice as director when you look at the sheer love that emits from the source material. Among other flaws, the live action version of "Dumbo" did not have the level of heart needed to be coupled with the original animated version but die-hard Tim Burton fans might enjoy it.

3 Stars out of 5