Dumbo is Delightfully Dull

Upon re-watching Dumbo, Disney's fourth animated feature, a few things like the crows haven't aged well but how can you not love Dumbo who is just so cute. He never talks but still conveyed plenty of emotion and his friendship with Timothy Q. Mouse added to that. It's quite shocking how cruel the circus treats him from jeering at this ears, being separated from his mother, and suffer humiliation as a clown. It's also really short, clocking at an hour and ten minutes. Strangely, the idea was conceived as a short before deciding to be a full-length picture. A decision that saved the Disney company after the financial disappointments of Pinocchio and Fantasia despite their critical acclaim.

Concept art from the cancelled sequel would have had
Dumbo and his circus friends go into the city.

In retrospect, it's a short and simple story (if a bit bitter at times). What more can be added? Plans for a sequel were in development during Disney's Direct-to-Video/DVD era but was quickly canceled. Would it have fared better than this Tim Burton iteration? The last time he did a live-action Disney film resulted in weird Burton fan-fiction that was Alice in Wonderland. For better or worse, it was also the movie that pioneered Disney's nostalgic wave of live-action remakes.

Stick to stop-motion remakes like Frankenweenie, Mr. Burton.  

Burton does it again as his version of Dumbo serves more as a mad-lib sequel than an actual retelling; the plot of the original is told in the first twenty minutes, in a movie clocking at nearly two hours.

Both show emotion but the original had more life.

So much freedom is allowed in animation that would be difficult to replicate in live-action from the animal's expressions, to their anthropomorphic and cartoony movement. The original ran on a cheap budget and yet still manged to project so much. In this version, with its estimated million dollar budget and computer animation, it tries but results in a pale imitation of the original.

Timothy reduced to a cardboard cameo. 

The movie's biggest mistake is not having the animals talk. That was a key factor that added charm to the 1941 movie. I can understand for Dumbo but it didn't have to apply with the entire menagerie. How boring would it have been if Charlotte's Web got the same no-talking-animal treatment?  Or worse with Disney's first live-action hybrid attempt with 1994's The Jungle Book and the clones that followed? (Note to self: need to rewatch 1996's 101 Dalmatians and see if it still hold's up).

We rely on uninteresting human characters who have more screen time than the titular character. The ones that are interesting get pushed to the side and unintentionally bashes itself with its own corporate message. Did I mention that the screenwriter wrote Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction? 

Don't worry Mr. Farrrell, even as a clown you still keep your cool. 

The kids unfortunately give the worst performances especially Nico Parker as the young girl who looks after Dumbo. Maybe it was the way she was directed or how her character was written but she  wears the same monotone expression and always responds in a robotic voice.  Micheal Keaton is over-the-top as a mix between Walt Disney and Ray Croc (a role that played better in The Founder). Collin Farrell and Eva Green could have worked as the main leads if they weren't thinly written but give it their all. Only Danny DeVito brings in the energy that like Farrell and Green, I wished he was the main focus. Whether Alan Arkin knew this film would work or not, he made sure to be remembered and by George every line of dialogue he spouted had me chuckling.

Batman and Penguin reunite, but not on the right of circumstances. 

If there is one thing that Burton's did right is giving more time to Dumbo's reunion with his mother. The animated version only gave them ten seconds of happiness where Burton gives them more than minute. It's brief but is more than enough. There are nice callbacks like the Casey Jr. train, the storks, pink elephants (drunken pachyderm not included) and a cover of "Baby Be Mine"only to remind me that I could be watching the original instead.

Final Verdict: D+