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Tim Burton ’s “Dumbo” feels like one of the big-eared baby elephant’s early flights: It’s adorable and earnest but it causes a lot of commotion, and it only sporadically, haltingly soars.

Burton’s live-action incarnation of the 1941 animated Disney classic consists of pieces of better Burton movies stitched together. With his oversized ears that make him the subject of both awe and ridicule, Dumbo is a classic Burton misfit—the kind of character the director has focused on in twisted yet kindhearted fashion for the entirety of his career. Specifically, though, the century-old circus setting can’t help but call to mind “ Big Fish ,” especially with Danny DeVito once again serving as ringleader. “Dumbo” also offers a “ Batman Returns ” reunion, with both DeVito and Michael Keaton reteaming with Burton, albeit with their hero and villain roles reversed. And the music from Burton’s decades-long collaborator Danny Elfman is frequently reminiscent of Elfman’s haunting score for “ Edward Scissorhands .”

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.

Still, legend of the flying pachyderm spreads far and wide—all the way to Coney Island, where amusement park mogul V.A. Vandevere (Keaton) decides to make Dumbo the main attraction at his latest development. The entrepreneur swoops in alongside his girlfriend, the French aerial artist Colette Marchant ( Eva Green ), to whisk Medici’s entire circus away, promising prominent jobs for the sundry freaks. Keaton’s performance is baffling—he’s clearly a villainous figure but he’s also put a hammy spin on the character that clangs, as well as a vacillating accent and a questionable wig. The dangerous magnetism he’s grabbed us with in Burton films like “ Beetlejuice ” seems unusually tamped down here. Green is always a goddess, though, and the rare performer who gets the opportunity to show glimmers of an interior life.  

Vandevere’s Dreamland—a glossy and futuristic Art Deco extravaganza that bears more than a little resemblance to Disneyland—is where veteran production designer Rick Heinrichs ’ work truly springs to life. And the costumes from Burton’s longtime collaborator, the great Colleen Atwood , are at their most dazzling in this section—especially the sparkly and vividly textured creations she’s come up with for Green’s elegant aerialist.

So much work clearly went into building this elaborate and period-specific world that when a massive anachronism occurs in the form of a lame pop-culture gag, it’s a turning point from which the film never recovers—and it’s not as if “Dumbo” had been terribly effective at drawing us in anyway. Burton goes to the joke not once but twice, but it was painfully groan-worthy the first time. And while it's always a pleasure to see Alan Arkin , his shtick as the gruff and impatient millionaire who's invested in the theme park feels so out of place, it's as if he wandered in from another movie.  

Lost amid all this empty bluster and spectacle is the sweet story at the film’s core: that of a scared, young boy who longs to be reunited with his mother. As the mom of a nine-year-old boy myself, if I’m not sobbing in a puddle of tears by the end of your movie, you’ve done something wrong.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Dumbo (2019)

Rated PG for peril/action, some thematic elements, and brief mild language.

112 minutes

Colin Farrell as Holt Farrier

Michael Keaton as V. A. Vandemere

Danny DeVito as Max Medici

Eva Green as Colette Marchant

Finley Hobbins as Joe Farrier

Nico Parker as Milly Farrier

Alan Arkin as J. Griffin Remington

Writer (novel)

• Harold Pearl
• Helen Aberson
• Ehren Kruger

Cinematographer

• Chris Lebenzon
• Danny Elfman

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Review: ‘Dumbo’ Goes Bonkers in Dreamland

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By Manohla Dargis

• March 27, 2019

In his live-action remake of Disney’s “Dumbo,” Tim Burton plays with a legacy that he has helped burnish for decades, only to set it gleefully ablaze. Ho-hum until it takes a turn toward the fascinatingly weird, the movie is a welcome declaration of artistic independence for Burton, who often strains against aesthetic and industrial restrictions. Watching him cut loose (more recklessly than his flying baby elephant) is by far the most unexpected pleasure of this movie, which dusts off the 1941 animated charmer with exhilaratingly demented spirit.

One of Disney’s simplest, sweetest heart-tuggers ( with some queasy racial stereotypes ), the original “Dumbo” tells the story of a wee circus elephant whose enormous flappy ears enable him to fly. Based on a children’s book , it was made fast and proved a terrific success. The straightforward story might not have seemed an obvious choice for an auteurist project, particularly given this one’s cultivated eccentricities. But “Dumbo” is among the seemingly endless number of animated movies that Disney is giving a live-action makeover: “ Jungle Book ,” “The Lion King,” “Aladdin,” “Mulan,” “The Sword in the Stone,” and on and on until the end of the world (or movies) as we know it.

For roughly the first half-hour of the new “Dumbo,” Burton seems on autopilot as he introduces the characters and sets the old-timey scene with an otherworldly pale palette. (The script is by Ehren Kruger, whose credits include “The Brothers Grimm” and several “Transformers” movies.) The story opens in 1919 at a down-and-out circus owned by Max Medici (Danny DeVito, pumping life into his scenes), a ringmaster who presides over the movie’s busily milling, child-friendly freaks and geeks. By the time an earnest, tamped-down Colin Farrell enters as Holt, a big-tent trick rider turned disabled World War I veteran, the near two-hour running time feels a lot like a threat.

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Things pick up when baby Dumbo arrives in a makeshift birthing bed. Now a digital cutie with gargantuan ears that hang off each side of his head like heavy leather curtains, the newest, littlest circus addition is conspicuously more animal than his childlike antecedent. Like the original, this Dumbo doesn’t speak, which perhaps is why Burton focuses on his unnaturally large, expressive eyes. (He’s an Indian elephant , so his trunk has one searching finger.) Those eyes moisten a lot, including when Holt’s drearily conceptualized and motherless — of course! — children (Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins) comfort Dumbo after his protective mom is sent to elephant jail.

In time, the kids help teach Dumbo to fly, coaxing him with a feather he snuffles into his trunk: He sneezes, and the exhalation sends him up. When he finally achieves genuine liftoff, soaring around the interior of the circus’s one-ring tent, Burton does, too. It’s ticklish fun to watch baby elephants of any kind, including an airborne one. That’s true even if Dumbo’s flights prove increasingly bleak because he’s at the mercy of some very bad people. Humans are secondary attractions in the 1941 movie (its animals are people proxies) but they crowd the remake. Most are just generic placeholders, but a few are strikingly brutal exploiters, none more so than V. A. Vandevere, a subversive invention.

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Film Review: Tim Burton’s ‘Dumbo’

Tim Burton's live-action remake of the 1941 Disney classic about a flying circus elephant adds nuts and story bolts to a tale that didn't need them.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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The key image in Walt Disney’s 1941 “ Dumbo ” is something out of a fairy-tale daydream: Dumbo, the baby elephant with long-lashed goo-goo eyes, a cuddly grin, and ears as long and floppy as wings, flapping those ears to soar around a circus big top, flying over the crowds with a freedom as touching as it is inexplicable. It’s one of the purest images in movies. “Dumbo” was Disney’s fourth animated feature (after “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Pinocchio,” and “Fantasia”), and like Dumbo himself it’s a beautiful oddball — a solid-colored piece of stylized pop Americana, only 64 minutes long, at times almost a silent movie with sound effects. One of the more remarkable things about it is that Dumbo, after being cruelly separated from his mother (a primal twist that anticipates “Bambi”), doesn’t discover his ability to fly until the last six minutes of the movie. When he does, he becomes a creature as enchanted in his yearning and escape as King Kong up on the Empire State Building or E.T. hoisting a bicycle into the sky. In “Dumbo,” the magic of Dumbo’s ability to fly comes at the audience like a heavenly afterthought, one that tosses us into the sublime and leaves us there.

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The flying sequences in Tim Burton ’s “Dumbo,” a live-action reimagining of the Disney classic, have a touch of that same wonderstuck quality. Dumbo, now created with animatronic and digital effects, is still a cute, lonely pachyderm with impossibly large floppy ears who speaks to us with his soft pleading anthropomorphic Keane eyes (he has no dialogue.) When he’s slathered in clown make-up and forced to stand on top of a towering circus platform, his fear and humiliation are palpable. Then, after ingesting a feather into his trunk (the superstitious ritual that gives him the faith to fly), he plunges downward and takes wing, and for a few moments you feel your heart soaring along with his.

But in the new “Dumbo,” our hero’s happy-sad flights of fancy aren’t the emotional culmination of the movie; they start early on and happen periodically, to gradually lesser effect. A bulgy little elephant, as suffused with feeling as a silent-movie clown, lofting himself into the air: That’s still a marvelous image. But the new “Dumbo” is a meandering parable about the world’s attempt to corrupt it.

Dumbo, whose real name is Baby Jumbo, is born into a barnstorming circus run by the scuzzy carny barker Max Medici (Danny DeVito), who gets bought out by V.A. Vandevere ( Michael Keaton ), an entrepreneur in a silvery wig so ornate it makes Andy Warhol’s look organic. Vandevere believes in the go-big-or-go-home school of entertainment. The year is 1919, and his “circus” is really the world’s first theme park, a place called Dreamland that’s as packed with rides, exhibits, and chicanery as a small city. He’s not a showman; he’s an exploiter. He looks at Dumbo and sees a gold mine, and he doesn’t deliver the elephant’s gift in all its cracked glory so much as he squeezes the wonder out of it through packaging.

And that’s what this overly eager, fractious, Burtonized but standardized, loudly comic but ultimately rather mirthless remake does to “Dumbo.” It transforms a gentle and miraculous tale into a routine story by weighing it down with a lot of nuts and bolts it didn’t need. The character of Dumbo is still touching, but the tale of entrapment and rescue that surrounds him is not. It’s arduous and forgettable, done in busy italicized strokes, and apart from that FX elephant the movie doesn’t come up with a single character who hooks us emotionally.

“Dumbo” has the look and atmosphere of a “sincere” blockbuster that’s trying too hard. What it’s trying too hard to do, of course, is to justify its existence as another live-action version of a fabled Disney cartoon. Is there a reason to make a live-action “Dumbo”? As storytelling, no, but the reason behind all these films boils down to an addictive novelty: What will a live-action “Dumbo” look like ? There’s a heady curiosity to that question, and a nostalgia factor too, combined with the fact that even people who have never seen the original film (in this case, that may be a considerable segment of the audience) may feel that they know the character in their bones, because he’s part of our collective pop imagination. So a film like “Dumbo” has that old-but-retrofitted, known-quantity-but-new-take recipe that so much of the Hollywood economy is now based on.

If only the retrofitting were more crazy-inspired. When you look at what separates a good Tim Burton film from one that adds up in the abstract more than it does onscreen, there’s an elemental yardstick: A Burton film that gels is almost always built around a personality wild and woolly enough to be irresistible. That’s why “Ed Wood” was a cracked masterpiece, why “Beetlejuice” and “Edward Scissorhands” are still dark delights, why “Batman,” driven by Jack Nicholson’s palm-buzzer bravura, left you jazzed while “Batman Returns,” with its conceptual gallery of rogues, didn’t, and why “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” was a delirious remake and “Planet of the Apes” was a dud.

In “Dumbo,” Burton seems caught between the rote earnestness of Colin Farrell as Holt Farrier, a drawling big-top horse-rider who returns to the Medici Bros. Circus from World War I without his left arm, and with a couple of kids (Nico Parker and Finely Hobbins) to take care of (his wife died of influenza during the war), and the barely sympathetic broadness of Danny DeVito as Medici, a scruffy showman who oscillates between two modes: blaring and befuddled.

Keaton’s performance as the dastardly Vandevere is disappointingly thin; he’s a bad guy with a sandpaper voice but no layers. And Eva Green as Colette, his Parisian trapeze-artist paramour, has token flashes of pizzazz and a sympathetic aura, but that’s about it. Surprisingly, the Medici circus performers have almost no personality — just compare them to the ones in “The Greatest Showman,” a three-ring pageant of a movie that overflows with wounded-misfit feeling. You could say that the problem resides in the script, by Ehren Kruger, but the larger problem is that Tim Burton is using these characters to pad out his story. There’s no feeling of obsession in “Dumbo.” Burton should have dived much deeper into the circus-world Expressionist masochism that was there in the original “Dumbo.” But that was Disney back when the company was blazing trails in popular art. Now it’s blazing corporate synergies.

Burton uses the wistful lullaby “Baby Mine” from the original movie (there’s an Arcade Fire cover version over the closing credits), and he pays homage to the most off-the-hook sequence in “Dumbo”: the “Pink Elephants On Parade” surrealist musical number, a kind of trip-movie-in-miniature that you can see echoed in everything from “Yellow Submarine” to some of the more out-there Looney Tunes toons. Burton references it by staging a fanfare with giant glistening soap bubbles that turn into elephants — a pleasing effect, but the sequence doesn’t build or lead anywhere. It’s just eye-candy filler. And while Dumbo remains a touching character, I wanted the reunion the movie is working toward to be wrenching. (It’s more like, you know, nice .) “Dumbo” is no folly; it doesn’t leave you feeling cheated. But it’s not exhilarating either. It occupies a carefully tailored, underimagined middle ground where even an elephant who flies can come to seem, by the end, a figure of flamboyant caution.

Reviewed at AMC Lincoln Square, New York, March 25, 2019. MPAA Rating: PG. Running time: 112 MIN.

• Production: A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a Walt Disney Pictures, Tim Burton Productions, Infinite Detective Productions, Secret Machine Entertainment, MPC production. Producers: Justin Springer, Ehren Kruger, Katterli Frauenfelder, Derek Frey. Executive producers: Tim Burton, Nigel Gostelow.
• Crew: Director: Tim Burton. Screenplay: Ehren Kruger. Camera (color, widescreen): Ben Davis. Editor: Chris Lebenzon. Music: Danny Elfman.
• With: Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Eva Green, Alan Arkin, Nico Parker, Finley Hobbins, Roshan Seth, Lars Eldinger, Deobia Oparei, Joseph Gatt, Miguel Muñoz Segura.

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A young elephant, whose oversized ears enable him to fly, helps save a struggling circus, but when the circus plans a new venture, Dumbo and his friends discover dark secrets beneath its shi... Read all A young elephant, whose oversized ears enable him to fly, helps save a struggling circus, but when the circus plans a new venture, Dumbo and his friends discover dark secrets beneath its shiny veneer. A young elephant, whose oversized ears enable him to fly, helps save a struggling circus, but when the circus plans a new venture, Dumbo and his friends discover dark secrets beneath its shiny veneer.

• Ehren Kruger
• Helen Aberson
• Harold Pearl
• Colin Farrell
• Michael Keaton
• Danny DeVito
• 787 User reviews
• 310 Critic reviews
• 51 Metascore
• 4 wins & 13 nominations

• Holt Farrier

• V. A. Vandevere

• Colette Marchant

• J. Griffin Remington

• Milly Farrier
• Joe Farrier

• Pramesh Singh

• Hans Brugelbecker

• (as DeObia Oparei)

• Neils Skellig
• Ivan the Wonderful
• Catherine the Greater
• (as Zenaida Alcalde Alcalde)

• Rufus Sorghum

• Miss Atlantis

• Puck the Organ Grinder

• Pramesh's Nephew
• Helen Aberson (uncredited)
• Harold Pearl (uncredited)
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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

How Tim Burton Created a Family of Outsiders in 'Dumbo'

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Did you know

• Trivia There was a swear jar on set. Whenever an actor cursed, they needed to put money in the jar. At the end of shooting, the total was given to charity. Allegedly, Colin Farrell was the worst offender and was responsible for the majority of the money.
• Goofs When Dumbo escapes from the circus with Milly's help, he flies over the Brooklyn Bridge and in the background the Empire State and Chrysler Buildings are shown. The Empire State started construction in 1930 and the Chrysler Building started construction in 1928 yet the movie is set in 1919 and early 1920s.

V. A. Vandevere : [after hearing the noise of a monkey trapped in one of Max's desk drawers] Is that a monkey in your desk?

Max Medici : Just for emergencies.

• Crazy credits At the end of the closing credits a brief bit of "When I See an Elephant Fly" plays, which was heard at the end of Dumbo (1941) .
• Connections Featured in AniMat's Crazy Cartoon Cast: The Grinchy Dumbo (2018)
• Soundtracks Casey Junior Written by Ned Washington and Frank Churchill

User reviews 787

• alexornelas
• Apr 4, 2019
• How long is Dumbo? Powered by Alexa
• March 29, 2019 (United States)
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Official Instagram
• Official Site
• Dumbo: Chú Voi Biết Bay
• Cardington, Bedfordshire, England, UK
• Walt Disney Pictures
• Tim Burton Productions
• Infinite Detective
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $170,000,000 (estimated)
• $114,766,307
• $45,990,748
• Mar 31, 2019
• $353,284,621

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 52 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Surround 7.1

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Tim Burton’s Dumbo is a charming-enough remake — and a biting Disney critique

The floppy-eared elephant returns to the big screen, flanked by a tale of corporate villainy and greed.

by Alissa Wilkinson

Two-thirds of the way through director Tim Burton’s live-action remake of Dumbo — no spoilers, don’t worry — Michael Keaton, playing a maniacal villain, hollers at our hero, a one-armed circus cowboy named Holt Farrier and played by Colin Farrell. “You freak!” he bellows, chaos swirling around them. “What have you done!”

“What they pay me for, sir,” Holt replies. “To put on a show.”

It’s a quippy throwaway line, but in the film’s context, it’s a lot more. Holt’s rejoinder feels like a confession of some sort, a mea culpa from Burton, whose most recent string of films (from at least 2010’s Alice in Wonderland to 2016’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children , and maybe longer) have disappointed and baffled former fans. Whither the weird, macabre artist responsible for Edward Scissorhands and Batman Returns ? Why all this banal dreck? Burton’s films arguably took a nosedive once he started getting a larger budget to make them — all spectacle, little heart or soul — and this new version of Dumbo feels eerily like an attempt to apologize for his later, passionless work.

And if that wasn’t a strange enough thing to inject into a lighthearted kids’ movie, Burton’s Dumbo remake is unmistakably a critique of entertainers who sell out to greedy corporations for the cash. Specifically, to Disney.

Somehow, Dumbo is a crystal-clear critique of ... Disney?

That last point is made with a sharp barb. Burton’s Dumbo is very nearly explicit about the dangers of Big Disney. It’s not just an allegory; the amusement park created by Keaton’s villainous character, entertainment mogul V.A. Vandevere, is undeniably modeled on Disney’s parks, right down to a version of Tomorrowland’s “House of the Future ,” showcasing now-quaint technologies that “future” homes will have. The resemblance is too clear to be accidental.

Of course, Disney is also the company that produced the film, and will make bank from it .

Yes, this is very weird! It’s even weirder since Dumbo — a story in which a small circus is bought by a larger one for its assets (in this case, a flying elephant), and then the staff is laid off to cut costs — comes out just a week after Disney’s acquisition of Fox, and after a very similar thing happened to many employees at Fox, including those who’d helmed highly successful specialty divisions .

The timing has to be at least mostly coincidental on Burton’s part; the film was first announced in 2014, after all . But the parallels are too stark to be totally unconscious. With Dumbo , Burton seems to have taken a relatively banal script retelling the classic 1941 children’s film and imagined it as a prescient and pointed critique of Disney. Is he biting the hand that feeds him? And did anyone at Disney notice?

I’m not sure, but the strangely timed critique alone makes the movie worth watching. On the surface, Dumbo is a perfectly adequate family film about a circus, a flying elephant, and the kids who believe in him. But the subtext is startlingly subversive.

Dumbo is entertaining, if not very creative

As a film, Dumbo is no barn-burner, largely forgettable in a way its predecessor wasn’t — not least because the 1941 film was a musical, with some of the most bewitching songs in the Disney canon, or because the weirdest parts (like the pink elephant dream ballet ) are turned into far less peculiar homages. But it’s charming in its own way, mostly because little Dumbo is incredibly cute: a blue-eyed, floppy-eared little elephant who seems engineered in a (computer animation) lab to break your heart.

The animals were the main characters in the 1941 version, but in this one, set in 1919, the spotlight is on the humans. The circus that Dumbo and his mother are part of is run by Max Medici (Danny DeVito), a smooth talker who seems to take genuine pleasure in his traveling community of freaks, clowns, and performers. Holt Farrier used to perform as a daring horse rider in a pair with his wife. But he went off to fight in the Great War, and in the interim, his wife passed away, leaving behind two young children: the precocious budding scientist Milly (Nico Parker) and her younger brother, Joe (Finley Hobbs).

Farrier returns without an arm, and with a demotion; now, Medici tells him, he’ll be in charge of the elephants. It soon turns out that Baby Jumbo, aka Dumbo — whom everyone makes fun of for his massive ears — can fly. News spreads, and the whole little circus gets turned on its head when the entertainment mogul V.A. Vandemere and his lady, the “Queen of the heavens” (and, as it turns out, trapeze artist) Colette (Eva Green) show up to buy out Medici’s circus. Medici becomes a vice president in Vandemere’s operation, and the whole operation moves up to his massive Disney World-doppelganger park in Coney Island. That’s when things get dark.

There are many, many baffling things about Dumbo . Why would a circus full of oddballs and outcasts make fun of the inarguably adorable little elephant, for instance? Why is the movie at pains to clumsily shoehorn a love of “science” as Milly’s defining character trait, but for no reason, and with no consequence? Why does it feel the need to conjure up a romance in an overstuffed plot? And why do I get the distinct impression that Keaton, who positively chomps on the scenery throughout, is in an entirely different movie from Alan Arkin, playing a bigwig potential investor, who at one point jovially remarks, “This is a disaster!” while wandering through a burning landscape?

I don’t know what to tell you. Choices were made. What I know is that Dumbo isn’t entirely unpleasant to watch — on the whole, it’s probably Burton’s best since Big Fish , whatever that’s worth — and while the scenes in which the elephant takes flight around the circus tent aren’t exactly magical, they’re pretty fun.

The very existence of Dumbo , though, is far more interesting than the film itself. It’s the kind of studio film that takes on a far more interesting connotation when the culture in which it was produced is considered.

The subversiveness of Dumbo may be what makes it work

Dumbo is one in a long string of live-action Disney remakes, ways for the entertainment giant to more or less print piles of money for itself. The films tend to be wildly successful — 2017’s Beauty and the Beast was the second-highest grossing film of the year, behind The Last Jedi — and that means this year includes not just Dumbo , but also The Lion King and Aladdin . A number of future remakes, among them Lady and the Tramp , Mulan , Pinocchio , and The Hunchback of Notre Dame , have been announced .

Of course, it’s also a way for it to reinvent its old stories for new generations. Some films, like Beauty and the Beast , stick pretty close to the beloved original, even keeping many or most of the original songs. But others (like Burton’s 2010 Alice in Wonderland remake) are more interested in rethinking the classic story from a new angle.

That didn’t work out so well for Burton in the past; his Alice was very bad , and a huge disappointment for what felt like a possibly good match between director and subject matter. Other recent adaptations he’s made (Disney or not), from Sweeney Todd to Miss Peregrine , have too often made their source material somehow less interesting, stripping out what’s eerie and great about the originals.

It’s too simple to say that this is a result of greater studio backing (and the money that comes with it). And directors aren’t obliged to stick to the style of the work they made in their early days. But it’s been a disappointment to see this from a director whose work used to feel highly original, driven by a way of seeing the world that was unique and idiosyncratic.

That’s why the plot of this new Dumbo — which involves a scrappy little circus selling out to a huge, spectacle-driven circus housed in the “Dreamland” portion of a huge, slick amusement park — seems so personal. There’s very little mercy here for the big entertainment corporation, headed by a guy who would rather burn the world than lose his powerful grip on people’s eyeballs. (At one point, Vandevere yells, “What happened to my power?!” which seems pretty on the nose.)

The drive to accumulate money, when it takes over the drive to make great art or entertainment, kills creativity and crowds out humanity and decency, Dumbo says. Turning simple joy and wonder into pure eye-popping extravaganza can only end in emptiness, in people losing their jobs and being trapped in avarice.

You can’t call it a sly critique, giving its pointed setting in a Disney-derived park. And it seems like calling your studio greedy becomes a bit less effective when the studio is paying for it. But the attempt, at least, may be exactly why Dumbo works, relative to Burton’s other recent films.

Certainly it helps that the whole cast is giving some kind of kooky performance in a different movie: DeVito’s playing a carnival barker; Farrell’s playing a romantic hero in a Western; Green is playing a French witch of some kind; Arkin is practically in a slacker flick; and Keaton is in a lathering frenzy by the end, more Joker than entertainment mogul. There’s just enough going on visually (synchronized dancers, fiery spectacles, unnecessary but pretty train montages) to keep things interesting.

And while the story is predictable and over-laden with subplots (some kind of cross between The Greatest Showman and The Nutcracker and the Four Realms , and maybe a dash of Mary Poppins Returns ), by the end it’s justified its stay. Families will enjoy the film together, and kids will want a plushy little Dumbo (modeled on the plushy Dumbos seen in the movie being hawked from a table outside the circus, in true Disney parks style) to fly around the living room.

But setting all that aside, it’s the personal nature of the film, seemingly Burton’s self-aware explanation for his own recent work and a critique of the company that’s making this one, that makes Dumbo notable. Injecting a little subversion into the film brings back some of that outsider spirit. Burton has always been making movies about outsiders who are mocked for being different — this time, that’s an elephant. But this gets much harder to do when you’ve become the insider. With Dumbo , he’s inching, ever so slowly, back outside the tent.

Dumbo opens in theaters on March 28.

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Dumbo Reviews

It’s bad enough that this overbloated, soulless imitation can’t find a reason to exist. But it’s all style and no substance, and even the style isn’t worthy of the Tim Burton name.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 14, 2024

Burton’s usual dark tone is subdued but the creativity and imagination remain, finding messages in various segments of the story everyone can relate to.

Full Review | Apr 27, 2024

This remake improves on a lot of aspects of its predecessor. Dumbo is probably the most visually stunning and incredibly realistic live-action character Disney was able to produce so far. This little elephant alone is worth the price of admission.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 24, 2023

While this Dumbo only flies so high, it never feels like it lacks for imagination.

Full Review | May 27, 2023

The new live-action remake of the Disney animated classic Dumbo is helmed by the darkly eccentric director Tim Burton and his latest film is like nothing I’ve ever seen from the master of juxtaposition: Safe, almost tepid, and it’s monotonously boring.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 18, 2022

It feels hollow and cheap, despite the production values.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Mar 3, 2022

For me, this was a little odd and incredibly sad... I think too sad.

Full Review | Sep 30, 2021

Sometimes more is less. The heart of the story is found in Dumbo's character not the layers of CGI action that surround him.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 4, 2021

The new Dumbo is not blatantly bad; rather, it's a mostly bland affair that doesn't justify the effort it took to remake the film. The story moves away from being solely Dumbo's journey, and the emotions that removes can't be replaced.

Full Review | Feb 18, 2021

It sputters through its first act, jolts us through its last and, worst of all, reveals Dumbo's special ability too early, leaving little to the imagination and no reprieve from the nagging horrors of reality.

Full Review | Jan 29, 2021

Without Timothy Q. Mouse as a Jiminy Cricket-like mentor, and without Dumbo as the emotional core, audiences are left with formulaic human protagonists and human villains.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Dec 7, 2020

I've long ago stated that Danny Elfman should just take up permanent residency with Disney.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.0/4.0 | Sep 7, 2020

A cocktail of Burton's delirious vision and the joy-filled ride that is a Disney movie. Dumbo is a truly rare beast indeed.

Full Review | Original Score: 4 / 5 | Sep 4, 2020

Thanks to some dazzling effects and a rich visual design, this Dumbo just about flies with a sweet and simple sense of spirit and adventure.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 28, 2020

When he first takes to the skies in front of the baying mob of a circus crowd and Danny Elfman's score soars to a crescendo, you almost want to stand up and punch the air.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2020

The biggest problem with Disney's live-action remake of its animated classic...is as plain as the trunk on your face: It's just no fun.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 29, 2020

[A]s for Dumbo himself? He's cute if the viewer can get past his total lack of presence. For the rest of us, he's just a victim of creative poaching.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 27, 2020

Tim Burton's new live-action remake of "Dumbo" eliminates too many of the beloved elements of the original classic for a relentlessly gloomy endeavor that's way too sad for its intended child audience.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 24, 2020

It's artificial, trivial, loaded with a repetition that doesn't allow imaginative ideas to rise. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Jul 24, 2020

It's visually uninspired, despite being helmed by a bonafide visionary, Tim Burton, who has opted to give us his version of a kid-friendly movie instead of his twisted take on the circus.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jul 21, 2020

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‘dumbo’: film review.

Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito and Eva Green star in Tim Burton's live-action remake of 'Dumbo,' the 1941 Disney animated classic about a baby elephant whose ears double as wings.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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It was a big risk taking a film guaranteed to reduce multiple generations to puddles of childhood-memory tears and entrusting remake responsibilities to a director whose track record at summoning genuine emotion is patchy at best. Edward Scissorhands was probably the last Tim Burton film in which the sentimental core felt remotely personal, as opposed to the cloying manufactured charm of, say, Big Fish — though a case could be made that Frankenweenie was a more recent detour into someplace heartfelt. But perhaps what Disney had in mind for its live-action Dumbo was more in the strange-and-fantastical Burton realm, a circus fantasia viewed through a nightmare filter?

That’s more or less what they’ve ended up with, and if it’s not going to supplant the eternally beloved 1941 animated classic for the multiple generations exposed to it at a young age, there’s likely enough here to keep today’s children absorbed. Though it’s hard to imagine it haunting their psyches into adulthood like its predecessor did for so many.

Release date: Mar 29, 2019

The hopes of diehard Burton fans might have been stoked by the recruitment of Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito , totems of the director’s more consistent days. But this is another frustratingly uneven picture, with thin characters — human and animal — that fail to exert much of a hold, reclaiming the story only toward the end. Up to then, the filmmaker’s overstuffed visual imagination and appetite for sinister gloom all but trample the enchantment of a tale that, at heart, is simple and whimsical. The central failure to recognize those virtues lies also in Ehren Kruger’s cluttered screenplay.

Part of the challenge was fleshing out widely known source material (the original was based on the novel by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl) that by today’s standards is positively anemic in plot terms; its running time barely goes over the hour mark. Burton and Kruger certainly show affection for the 1941 film, including at least a nod to most of its more iconic moments and a hint of its handful of songs — even the trippy “Pink Elephants on Parade” — though wisely skipping the jive-talking crows.

The movie opens with a boisterous surge of Danny Elfman ‘s score as a steam train in 1919 chugs from Sarasota, Florida, up across the Panhandle and continues on to Joplin, Missouri. The town is a hive of activity, with the Medici Bros. Circus setting up its faded big top and surrounding camp for another struggling engagement. The enterprise’s feisty owner, Max Medici (DeVito), who has no actual brother, believes he has found an attraction to remedy the hard times; he has purchased Mrs. Jumbo, a pregnant Asian elephant, and is already counting the cash her irresistible baby will be bringing in.

Meanwhile, two children, Milly and Joe Farrier (Nico Parker, Finley Hobbins), have been in the care of the circus troupe since the death of their mother, one of many losses suffered by the traveling company to influenza. Their father Holt ( Colin Farrell ) was part of a double-act with his wife, doing rope tricks on horseback, but when he returns from the war with one arm amputated he struggles to reconnect with his kids.

This is all Disney 101 — semi-orphaned siblings with one remaining, emotionally distant parent inevitably destined to mend his broken heart and earn back his kids’ love. Still, while the actors are all perfectly fine, there’s little poignancy in the damaged family unit, even with a dad nursing the twin sorrows of widowhood and possible PTSD. A dutiful post-Time’s Up tweak to the formula means Milly is a budding scientist. She also has her own mouse circus, though that seems more like a box-checking reference to the earlier film than an essential plot point.

The overnight arrival of a stork (without a bundle in its beak this time) signals the birth of Mrs. Jumbo’s baby, but Max is aghast to discover that the little male pachyderm has abnormally large ears, calling him a freak. He puts the reluctant Holt in charge of the animal’s care, instructing him to disguise its deformity and incorporate it into the clown act. But a whip-cracking circus hand (Phil Zimmerman) with a nasty streak and a grudge against Holt incites Mrs. Jumbo during the performance, causing mayhem. This gets the mother elephant confined to a prison-like trailer and branded as mad, until Max can offload her back onto the original owner at half price.

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It’s easy to see the attraction for Burton of the freakish outsider with the special gift, isolated by his difference, a theme amplified by the motley crew of circus performers, some of them also dubbed “freaks,” who respond fondly to the forlorn baby elephant. Among the tenderest of them is snake charmer Pramesh Singh (Roshan Seth), whose shared Indian heritage will have bearing as the plot unfolds. And in a sweet touch, the resident circus “mermaid,” Miss Atlantis (Sharon Rooney), strums a ukulele by the fireside and sings the original’s most indelible song, “Baby Mine.”

The trouble is, in a movie where character development is such a low priority, this cluster of peripheral figures without much to do until the climactic action — they’re like refugees from The Greatest Showman — just adds to the bloat.

One of the missteps of Kruger’s treatment is to reveal the magical element of Dumbo’s flight capabilities from the outset. (The elephant earns the name after another mishap in the circus ring, and it sticks.) There’s no buildup or surprise. Milly and Joe discover it by way of a black feather and a sneeze, of course, and then set about training the elephant to fly on cue, promising that once he’s the star attraction they’ll be able to buy back his mother. But a deal between gullible good guy Max and devious Coney Island impresario V.A. Vandevere (a silver-haired Keaton, twirling an imaginary villain’s mustache) steers them all off to the latter’s New York amusement park, Dreamland.

This is where the remake loosens its ties to the original and becomes a whole different Tim Burton movie — one with enough echoes of the director’s vintage work to make you wish it were better. Lugubrious excess kicks in and the character field becomes hopelessly overcrowded, with Vandevere trailed by an entourage led by his girlfriend Colette ( Eva Green , reuniting with Burton after Dark Shadows and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children ), a Paris street performer turned star aerialist.

A grand parade through the sprawling carnival city, with platoons of fascistic-looking clowns and busy Busby Berkeley-style dance spectacles, plays like a children’s film reimagined by Fritz Lang and Leni Reifenstahl — not in a good way. Sometimes more is less. And the adventurous escape that ensues when Vandevere predictably reveals his ruthlessness and Dumbo exposes the cruelty beneath the funfair utopia is too convoluted to be suspenseful.

The climax works to the extent it does simply because the elephant finally becomes the heart of the movie again, and a lovely scene near the end restores the primal emotional connection that made the original Dumbo so affecting. Elfman’s score, its soaring choral elements borrowed from Edward Scissorhands , plays a big part in injecting some feeling. There’s also a laudable if pedagogic moral lesson about the inhumanity of keeping wild creatures in captivity — a necessary update now that circuses have been rightly shamed into eliminating their animal acts.  

The CGI work is polished, but like Disney’s live-action Jungle Book remake, the animals (all nonverbal this time around) fall into an artificial limbo between animation and photorealism — particularly Mrs. Jumbo and her offspring with their huge, cartoonish eyes (a reminder of Burton’s deadly 2014 feature, Big Eyes ). Max’s comic sidekick, a capuchin monkey, is just an unfunny irritation.

In the 1941 movie, Dumbo’s sole ally was a talking mouse. Here, he has the Farrier kids, then Holt, rekindling his mojo, then the suddenly maternal Colette and the whole Medici Bros. troupe in his corner. This dilutes our direct connection to the adorable title character, even when his blue eyes brim with tears.

The actors all do what they can, but mostly get lost in the shuffle and end up with too little to do, like Alan Arkin ‘s cynical New York banker. This is a film in which Rick Heinrichs’ richly textured production design and Colleen Atwood ‘s beautiful period costumes are the stars. There are gorgeous images, such as the always alluring Green swinging from a giant chandelier in the big top, shedding her skirt before an aerial leap. But when that visual leaves a more captivating impression than a baby elephant spreading its ears and getting airborne like a glider, something is definitely off in the balance. The new Dumbo holds the attention but too seldom tugs at the heartstrings.

Production companies: Tim Burton, Infinite Detective, Secret Machine Entertainment Distributor: Disney Cast: Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Eva Green, Alan Arkin, Nico Parker, Finley Hobbins, Roshan Seth, DeObia Oparei, Sharon Rooney, Phil Zimmerman, Douglas Reith, Joseph Gatt Director: Tim Burton Screenwriter: Ehren Kruger Producers: Justin Springer, Ehren Kruger, Katterli Frauenfelder, Derek Frey Executive producers: Tim Burton, Nigel Gostelow Director of photography: Ben Davis Production designer: Rick Heinrichs Costume designer: Colleen Atwood Music: Danny Elfman Editor: Chris Lebenzon Visual effects supervisor: Richard Stammers Casting: Susie Figgis

Rated PG, 107 minutes

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Dumbo review: a cute cgi elephant can't save this hollow live-action retelling.

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"he would test you": m. night shyamalan details tense bruce willis conversation while filming oscar-nominated 1999 thriller, ghostbusters: frozen empire’s dana reference makes sigourney weaver’s absence so much worse, disney's live-action dumbo movie has threads of a heartwarming family story, with good performances, but is as shallow as its overly cgi-ed world..

Walt Disney Studios has found success in recent years by dipping into their animated classics vault and adapting the films to live-action, and the latest of these is Dumbo . Tim Burton directs the screenplay by Ehren Kruger ( Ghost in the Shell ), taking the 1941 animated Disney classic and translating it to a longer tale that focuses on the humans surrounding the titular baby elephant as much as the flying marvel - for better or worse. Burton returns to the Disney fold after 2010's Alice in Wonderland , and attempts a more grounded, but still fantastical story. Disney's live-action Dumbo movie has threads of a heartwarming family story, with good performances, but is as shallow as its overly CGI-ed world.

Dumbo  follows the Farrier family, including war veteran Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) who returns to the Medici Brothers circus and his two children, Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins), after the passing of their mother. The struggling circus is hoping to see a boost when its owner, Max Medici (Danny DeVito), purchases a pregnant elephant, but he's disappointed by the baby, who comes to be known as Dumbo, because of his big ears. However, all their fates change when Dumbo reveals he's able to fly and the Medici Brothers circus is acquired by entrepreneur V. A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton). In screenwriter Kruger's hands, the story of Dumbo  addresses themes of family, believing in yourself and the importance of animal rights - though some are more effective than others.

Altogether the story of Dumbo  finds a surprisingly natural way to flesh out the tale of the original, which was one of Disney's shortest animated films, but Kruger goes a touch too far and the new movie feels spread too thin across its two-hour runtime. Although Dumbo introduces a host of human characters to build out the world, they're largely one-dimensional and reduced to either moving the plot forward as necessary or used for punchlines. Keaton's Vandevere is perhaps the most memorable character, but that's largely up to the actor's quirky performance. Even within the Farrier family, Farrell gets the most to do as the father struggling to connect with his kids, but it still winds up feeling hollow despite Farrell's performances and takes a back seat to everything else going on in the movie. Meanwhile, with Milly, Disney continues its own relatively new trend of giving a young female character an interest in STEM, but since  Dumbo  doesn't build out the character beyond this interest, it's little more than lip service. And in the mix of the movie, the youngest Farrier completely falls by the wayside, along with all the performers from the Medici circus.

Where Dumbo excels, at least in terms of character, is the titular baby elephant, who is more fully realized than the majority of the human characters. The CGI-rendered elephant is adorable and expressive, making it easy to connect with the animal even as the humans around it appear more and more wooden. It certainly makes sense for Dumbo to be the star of the show, but the depth of emotion to the elephant's story and character juxtaposed with that of the humans only serves to remind viewers that the rest of the film is lacking in real heart. Against the overly sterilized CGI world in which the story takes place, Dumbo undoubtedly stands out for his realism, but even the adorable baby elephant can't save this show.

Altogether, Dumbo has all the hallmarks of a Burton movie, both good and bad. It follows a loveable weirdo (or, in this case, a circus troupe of loveable weirdos) who challenges preconceived notions of normalcy. In the case of Dumbo , Burton also includes an important message of animal rights that comes natural to a story about a baby elephant terrorized and forced to perform on cue. However, the movie also uses the particular blend of elaborate stage design and CGI backgrounds that has marked Burton's more recent films. In this case, that means the up close scenes in Dumbo tend to work, while the larger, grander moments of scenery fall completely flat. Dumbo is perhaps one of Burton's more successful movies of late, but by no means reaches the heights of the director's heyday.

Ultimately, Dumbo is a serviceable live-action Disney retelling that has all the elements of success on paper, but the heart is lost somewhere in translation. Despite a stellar cast in Farrell, DeVito, Keaton and Eva Green, Dumbo never achieves in fully developing its human characters, and although Dumbo himself is remarkably cute, the CGI elephant can't carry the movie on his own. While Dumbo may be entertaining enough for families and Disney faithfuls, the movie isn't necessarily a must-see, even for Disney die-hards. It's a perfectly fine live-action retelling of one of Disney's animated classics that proves not every film from the vault needs to be revisited.

Dumbo  is now playing in U.S. theaters nationwide. It is 112 minutes long and rated PG for peril/action, some thematic elements and brief mild language.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comments section!

Dumbo (2019)

Dumbo, directed by Tim Burton, is a live-action adaptation of Disney's classic 1941 animated film. The story centers on a young elephant with oversized ears that enable him to fly, captivating audiences and saving a struggling circus. Starring Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, and Eva Green, the film delves into themes of family and personal growth while showcasing Burton's signature visual style.

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With Dumbo , Tim Burton Proves He Still Knows How to Give Us What We Want

It was Tim Burton’s dreadful, garish, and bafflingly profitable live-action retooling of  Alice in Wonderland  that helped kick off the Disney-remake craze nearly a decade ago, so it’s understandable to expect the worst from  Dumbo.  The director has never handled sentiment well, and the original 1941  Dumbo  is, in some ways, the softest and simplest of the first wave of Disney animated classics; the idea of that compact, understated tale of friendship and maternal love somehow fueling another ornate, bloated Tim Burton super-production sends chills up the spine. But the new  Dumbo , as compromised as it is, somehow turns out to be one of the director’s better films of recent years — even as it reveals some of his more frustrating shortcomings.

Not unlike  Alice , this live-action take on  Dumbo  only borrows the bare bones of its story from the original. Dumbo is still a big-eared Asian elephant born in a circus and initially dismissed as a freak, but his companions this time are humans, primarily World War I vet and amputee Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) and his two kids, Joe and Milly (Finley Hobbins and Nico Parker), all of whom work for a traveling circus run by the boisterous and slightly shady Max Medici (Danny DeVito). The movie also takes from the original the tender bond between Dumbo and his protective mother, who is exiled after she rampages and kills a particularly harsh circus trainer. (And yes, we do get to hear a wonderful, new variation on the achingly tender song “Baby Mine.”)

The Farrier kids take over most of the narrative duties handled in the original by the scrappy Timothy Q. Mouse, who was basically a poor man’s Jiminy Cricket. But they’ve been given a lot more to do here. In the 1941 version, Dumbo doesn’t really fly until late in the story, a development that has the quality of a release, a catharsis. Here, it comes early — and as soon as the adorable little thing takes wing (or should that be “takes ear”?), Max gets a visit from V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton), a flamboyant, hot-shot New York carnival impresario, who whisks Dumbo and his human companions off to the infamous, massive Coney Island amusement park Dreamland.

The  real-life version of that park , by the way, had already burned down by the year 1919, which is when  Dumbo  takes place, but I did get a kick out of the film’s attempt to recreate the place — and to give us an alternate, fictional reason for the cataclysmic fire that engulfed it. The colorful world of Dreamland and its many attractions might also remind viewers of Disneyland itself, which prompts interesting thoughts about what Burton might be saying here, as Dumbo gets exploited by the rapacious, seemingly kid-friendly capitalist Vandevere. Could the picture be an allegory for the director’s own time toiling in the Disney factory? Maybe, but  Dumbo  doesn’t lend much to that reading — most of the story and the dialogue here are pitched at the level of children’s fantasy, simple and direct and subtlety-free. And don’t expect any of that sly, irreverent edge of grown-up cynicism that Burton brought to so much of his early work. This is not the man who gave us  Edward Scissorhands , and he hasn’t been for a while.

But here’s the good news: The circus settings do liberate Burton, giving him the opportunity to stage elaborate, bizarre acts with grandiosity and verve. Whether we’re watching Dumbo hoisted along a fake burning building to launch himself off a collapsing platform, or trying to navigate an ill-advised trapeze act, whenever the spotlights come on and the crowd roars,  Dumbo  comes to life. It helps also that Burton never lets us forget that we’re watching an  elephant   flying . The way the creature bops along awkwardly with each flap of his ears enhances the weirdness. We want to cheer, but we also want to laugh at the absurdity of it all. And the spectacle never gets tedious or tiresome (as it did in  Alice  and  Dark Shadows ) or confusing (as it did in  Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children ). I could watch the circus scenes of this film forever, and thankfully, there are plenty of them.

So that’s what’s good about  Dumbo . Here’s what’s bad: The story. The characters. Luckily there isn’t much of either. Dumbo himself is a marvel, a cuddly little weirdo who’s never quite anthropomorphized, and whose very animal sense of fear and bewilderment never leaves his face. We can sense Burton’s familiar empathy for those regarded as freaks in his portrayal of the creature. But the humans around Dumbo, none of whom emerges as any kind of narrative anchor, feel like cutouts. There has sometimes been a static blandness to the director’s pure dialogue scenes — his characters often stand still when they’re talking, as if they’re afraid to step out of storyboard position — and that’s often a problem here as well.

The actors do what they can. DeVito brings his trademark gusto to the part of a desperate circus owner, Keaton sports a dementedly dandyish swagger that is pure silliness, and Farrell cuts a dashing figure. But there’s only so much anyone can do to spruce up figures this one-dimensional. If the two kids who are ostensibly at the heart of this story had disappeared halfway through the movie, I’m not entirely sure I would have noticed.

And yet, it’s not hard to enjoy  Dumbo . Like the circus owners and carnival crackpots who try to exploit the flying elephant for all he’s worth, Tim Burton still knows how to give us what we want. He may think of himself as the tormented freak on display, but he’s also clearly the all-powerful showman, ready to exploit our sense of wonder.

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Dumbo (2019) Review

DUMBO FLIES, BUT NEVER SOARS

In 1941, Walt Disney Pictures released Dumbo , their fourth full-length feature animated film. The movie, which was based on the story / novel by Helen Aberson and Pearl, followed the journey of Jumbo Jr., a semi-anthropomorphic elephant who is cruelly nicknamed “Dumbo”, as in “dumb”. He is ridiculed for his big ears, but in fact he is capable of flying by using his ears as wings. Throughout most of the film, his only true friend, aside from his mother, is the mouse, Timothy – a relationship parodying the stereotypical animosity between mice and elephants. Dumbo, which was made to recoup the losses of 1940’s Fantasia (due to WWII in Europe) and be a more “simplistic” narrative for audiences and is also considered to be one of the shortest Disney animated films released (i.e. a 64-minute runtime). Despite being released the same year that the US entered WWII, Dumbo was a financial success from Disney and has become one of the most beloved classics from the company and in children’s entertainment. In 2017, the film was also selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. Now, with the studio’s current trend of revisiting its older animated properties for a new generation, Walt Disney Pictures and director Tim Burton present the live-action adaptation film Dumbo? Does the movie soar high or does it falter underneath cinematic expectations?

In 1919, the Medici Brothers Circus Owner, Max Medici (Danny DeVito) is trying to keep his troupe together, but finding it difficult to entice audiences to attend his traveling show. Returning from serving in World War I is Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell), a former cowboy who’s lost an arm in combat, trying to figure how to be useful to the circus as well as taking care of his children, Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins). Bringing in Jumbo, a new elephant to “spic up” interesting in the circus, Max and his traveling crew receive the arrival of the pachyderm’s newly born infant Dumbo, with the creature’s oversized ears identifying him as a “freak” to the human, who don’t know what to do with him. Put into Holt’s care, Dumbo soon reveals he’s capable flight (with the magical help from feathers) and is put on display by Max while Jumbo is sent away after growing violent when trying to protect her child. As Dumbo’s fame spreads, V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton), a New York City entrepreneur, comes looking to acquire the elephant, bringing Max’s troupe to his Dreamland park for spectacle glory. While Dumbo and the two Farrier children befriend trapeze artist Colette Marchant (Eva Green), Holt recognizes trouble and suspicion; surmising that Vandevere’s motives for the flying wonder elephant isn’t exactly pure of heart, while Dumbo himself is set to perform for the masses; hoping for the promise of being reunited with his mother.

THE GOOD / THE BAD

As I’ve told you guys many times before, I’m a huge fan of all things Disney. I grew up with the “House of Mouse” and all of its various media facets and properties…. from books, to toys, to cartoons, and to feature length movies (both live action and animated). Thus, it goes without saying that I steadily grew up watching majority of Disney’s animated feature films throughout my childhood; ranging from old classics to new endeavors and everything in-between from Disney’s vault. Naturally, I’ve come across watching 1941’s Dumbo many times in my youth; finding the animated movie to be quite endearing. Of course, I found it to be a little bit sad at times, especially that one particular scene with Dumbo’s mother (you guys know which one I’m talking about) as well as the whole “teasing” of Dumbo for his ears. Of course, Dumbo did have some highlights moments that I personally liked, including the train (Casey Jr.), the whole elephants on parade scene (which did scare me a bit when I was younger), and the whole crow scene. Of course, I do recognize that particular scene is now considered “racist” (and justly so for its stereotyping), but it does carry the most memorable scene in the film as well as the chief song “When I See an Elephant Fly”. In the end, Disney’s Dumbo is definitely a classic and remains timeless within its simplistic storytelling, colorful animation style (for its day and age), and universal message of embracing the idea of being different / individuality.

As to be expected, this brings me back to talking about the 2019 release of Dumbo , which is the latest addition to Disney’s resurgence of revisiting their animated classics for live-action treatments. Given the popular success of its past endeavors in its live-action reimaginings, it was almost inevitable that Disney would (eventually) come across updating their 1941 animated classic for a new generation of moviegoers. I’ll admit that…. with Disney releasing three “live action remakes” in 2019 (i.e. Dumbo , Aladdin , and The Lion King ), Dumbo was the least interesting one for me. Can’t say why, but I was more excited to see other two entries. Still, given the studio’s proven track record of these types of endeavors, I was curious to see how this movie would ultimately plan. In addition, I was curious to see how director Tim Burton would handle the source material. Plus, the film’s cast (i.e. Farrell, Keaton, DeVito, and Green) intrigued me. So, I went to see Dumbo a few weeks after it got released, but doing my movie review sort of fell through the cracks as I kept on delaying it…. until now. So, what did I think of it? Well, it was just somewhere between okay and good. While Dumbo expands upon the original feature in new ways and still retains the heartwarming story of the little flying elephant, the movie doesn’t ring celebratory and cinematic glory within its presentation and execution. The movie’s heart is definitely in the right place, but it’s, more or less, an adequate / serviceable live-action treatment from Disney.

As I said above, Dumbo is directed by Tim Burton, whose previous known for directing such films like Edward Scissorhands , Batman , and Beetlejuice . Given his previous involvement in what started this sort of “renaissance” era of Disney’s live-action remakes with the release of 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, Burton seems like a suitable choice for delivering another reimagining project for “House of Mouse”. Burton signature styles of visuals quirks and developing characters that may come across as “weird” or “misunderstood” has always been a classic moniker and attraction to his features and certainly does embrace the ideal with Dumbo . Of course, Burton makes the movie much more approachable for the family viewing audience than some of his past projects (not as creepy or dark), but Dumbo still feels very much like a Tim Burton film (and in this case…. that’s a good thing). To that end, Burton is a great capable director and certainly shows that in Dumbo , filling the feature and expanding upon its source material for some interesting ideas. While there are some changes made from the original film, Burton does make a few nods and winks from the classic 1941 animated film that I’m sure fans and moviegoers will spot (especially that one particular moment between Dumbo and his mom).

Also, and I don’t know who planned this out (Burton or Kruger), but Dumbo certainly does have an underling message of the cynicism in the entertainment industry, which is clearly visible in the character V.A. Vandevere through his ambition, idealism, and even his Dreamland amusement park. It’s clear that those attributes all vaguely swirl around Disney company itself and makes a person wonder if Burton or Kruger (or both) came up with that particular idea for Dumbo . To me, I found it to be quite amusing; the gall of it all of actually putting it in a Disney feature film release as well.

Presentation-wise, Dumbo is quite a beautiful film and clearly shows that Disney spared no expense when trying to translate their 1941 cartoon movie into a live-action remake. The film’s setting is much more realized that its original counterpart with Burton’s attention for detail for spot on in presenting the feature’s timeline circa 1919. Thus, the talents behind these particular filmmaking areas, including Rick Heinrichs (production designs), John Bush / Cosmo Sarson (set decorations), and Colleen Atwood (costume designs) should be given big “kudos” for their efforts in making Dumbo visually appealing. The movie might not be so great, but the presentation aesthetics of it all is quite striking. Additionally, Burton makes the film a visual appealing world, layering the large and expansive shots with some CGI visual to fully express the world’s setting. This is especially noticeable when depicting Vandevere’s Dreamland theme park. This might be a “love / hate” criticism view point for some moviegoers out there, with some finding Burton’s over usage of CGI visuals unnecessary, but I personally liked it and it didn’t bother me. The whole Dreamland concept was cool and fun and just wish that the movie got to explore more of it. Suffice to say…. the visuals certainly did help my wonder and fascination within the expansive, fictious amusement park. Thus, I really have to thanks the visual effects team and the art department for the concept / rendering of Dreamland. Plus, cinematographer Ben Davis does a great job in capturing many of the sequences that are visually stunning. Lastly, Burton’s frequently composer collaborator, Danny Elfman provides the musical score for Dumbo and certainly does hit all the right moments of sweet / tender flourishes and melodic / adventurous motifs throughout, which certainly does help with the film’s various sequences.

Perhaps one of the greatest strengths that the movie has to offer is in the character namesake of the film. Yes, Dumbo, the flying elephant, is quite endearing to watch whenever he’s on-screen. Personally, he’s more of a fully realized character more so than its human characters (more on the below). The CGI rendering of Dumbo is quite adorable and expressive, which is quite easy on the eyes (both visually speaking and in heartwarming) and is easy to connect / root for throughout the feature. Whatever your stance is on about this movie (be it good or bad), none one can deny how lovably cute Dumbo visually looks in the film and the tender journey he goes through in trying to find his mother.

Despite of having a lofty and surefire premise, Dumbo does falter in its execution; making the film feel not quite as remarkable as Burton (and Disney) wanted it to be. Given his wildly imaginative and sometimes “offbeat” signature and styles of filmmaking, Dumbo isn’t exactly Burton’s best motion picture and is to be considered a “safer” project than past endeavors. What do I mean by safer? Well, Dumbo , despite expanding upon the original 1941 animated movie, feels like a basic motion picture, with a narrative storyline that’s been many times before. There’s nothing wrong with the story being told as its quite universal and endearing, but Burton’s direction for Dumbo feels formulaic and predictable for a scenario that seems a bit familiar from similar films that have done this before. This can also be contributed to Kruger’s script, which also plays its safe within storytelling context and plot beats. Because of this, the movie (in its entirety) feel less impactfully entertaining as well.  It definitely works, but Dumbo doesn’t have the enticing cinematic “oomph” (that “je ne sais quoi” nuance) that other previous live-action remakes from Disney were able to achieve.

The cast in Dumbo has several big named stars in its selection, casting several prominent names to play the feature’s human characters. While Dumbo is, of course, the main attraction of the feature, the movie devotes time to the Farrier family, the caretaker circus members who watch over Dumbo throughout the film’s journey. At the head is actor Colin Farrell, who plays the role of Holt Farrier. Known for his roles in The Lobster , Alexander , and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them , Farrell gets the most to do (of the Farrier family) in the movie; finding the character of Holt to be the classic wayward hero, who’s trying to find his place after returning home from war as well as trying to “reconnect” with his kids. While his theatrical gravitas and presence on-screen is good, Holt’s character development takes a “backseat” towards the second half of the feature, which is slightly disappointing. Holt’s two kids (Milly and Joe), however, seem a bit underdeveloped and unnecessary. The character of Milly Farrier gets the most to do by helping with training Dumbo as well as being a “curious mind” for science and innovation (as a side story), but young actress Nico Parker (who makes her theatrical debut with Dumbo ) feels extremely wooden and not all realistic. Definitely a miscast. As for Joe, the youngest member of the Farrier family and who is played by young actor Finley Hobbins (who also makes his theatrical debut with Dumbo ) falls completely to the wayside with vey little importance beyond a few scenes of encouragement / continuity.

Looking beyond Dumbo and the Farrier family, there are several large supporting players in the movie, who are played by seasoned / recognizable talents, including actors Danny DeVito, Michael Keaton, and Eva Green. DeVito, known for his roles in Batman Returns, Taxi, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, seems to be the “best fit” within his character of Max Medici, the wisecracking / shrewd owner of the Medici Brothers Circus. DeVito brings his own bravado and talented charisma to the role in a way that the currently now 74-year-old actor can bring; making the most of Max in the feature. Keaton, known for his role as Batman , The Founder , and Spider-Man: Homecoming , plays a more “mustache twirling”, larger-than-life antagonist character in his portrayal of V.A. Vandevere, chewing his dialogue with glee and zeal. It’s not exactly the absolute best role that the actor has done, but it’s quite clear that he’s having fun as the “villain” in Dumbo . Lastly, Green, known for her roles in Casino Royale , Kingdom of Heaven , and 300: Rise of an Empire , plays the stereotypical supportive female character that befriends the main characters, but feels “trapped” within the clutches of the bad guy. It’s been many times over and does feel a bit stale in the movie, but Green’s screen presence elevates her portrayal of Colette Marchant. Plus, I love Green as an actress. Collectively, these characters, while performed well, never truly break out of their cliched “character personas”. They definitely work as storytelling characters, but could’ve been developed further than what’s presented.

Rounding out the cast are several minor characters that fill in the gaps either background secondary roles. This includes actor Roshan Seth ( Gandhi and Street Fighter ) as Pramesh Singh, actor DeObia Oparei ( Game of Thrones and Independence Day: Resurgence ) as strongman Rongo, actor Joseph Gatt ( Game of Thrones and Z Nation ) as Vandevere’s assistant Neils Skelling, actor Phil Zimmerman ( The Tunnel and The Scopia Effect ) as Rufus Sorghum, actor Douglas Reith ( Downton Abbey and The Queen ) as Sotherby, actress Sharon Rooney (The Tunnel and Sherlock) as Miss Atlantis, actor Frank Bourke ( The Last Kingdom and The Wind that Shakes the Barley ) as Puck the Organ Grinder, and actor Alan Arkin ( Argo and Little Miss Sunshine ) as business investor mogul J. Griffin Remington. Lastly, there is a fun / amusing cameo appearance of a famous announcer that appears in the movie. I did get a good chuckle he first appears in the feature (you’ll probably know who I am talking about).

FINAL THOUGHTS

In the current era of reimagining their old animated properties, Disney turns to one of their beloved classic cartoon features for live-action treatment in the 2019 release Dumbo . Director Tim Burton latest film sees to expand upon the original 1941 animated masterpiece, providing more room for character building and spectacle wonderment to unfold within the film’s presentation. While doesn’t quite reach the same entertainment caliber as some of the previous Disney live-action remakes of the past (stumbling within its story and characters), the film does reach some heightened cinematic wonder within its scenery (again, I love Dreamland), a few memorable moments (several translated from 1941 cartoon feature), and a heartwarming / familiar story of love, happiness, and being different. To me, I thought that this movie was okay. It held my attention and entertained me, but I wasn’t completely “wowed” by it like I did with the live-action remakes of Cinderella , The Jungle Book , and Beauty and the Beast . Thus, my recommendations for the film is a “Rent It” as it’s not really a “must see” Disney remake (probably the weakest entry of late), but is still a serviceable retelling of sorts. While Disney will continue to march forward of reimagining its animated features into live-action cinematic tales (with many more on the horizon), Dumbo stands as a cautionary tale for the juggernaut studio of family entertainment; proving that concrete influences need to be interjected into these current trends of remakes and maybe (just maybe) that not every Disney classic needs to be revisited within their illustrious vault.

3.1 Out of 5 (Rent It)

Released on: march 29th, 2019, reviewed on: may 11th, 2019.

Dumbo  is 112 minutes long and is rated PG for peril / action, some thematic elements, and brief mild language

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Great review, spot on! Burton is certainly a capable director, as you wrote, but despite the underlying message of the movie (there’s a clear critique of the entertainment industry!), the movie is not memorable by any mean…

I also wrote a post on my blog about it, more or less in line with what you wrote here, if you want to have a look (my perspective is a bit different, as I’ve never been a fan of the original movie, I barely remembered it)!

Thanks for the comment. Yes, I’ll definitely check out your post!!

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Critics Call This the Best Action Movie Ever Made and Now It's Getting a Remake

Every movie releasing in theaters in august 2024, every spielberg movie from the 21st century, ranked.

Tim Burton's live-action adaption of Dumbo hits the same emotional notes as the classic cartoon. It is unabashedly a children's movie; a medley of sorrow, wonder, and eventual triumph. The story has just enough darkness to establish tension. The plot is simple and straightforward, leaving little room for the all-star adult cast to manoeuvre. The young leads and heartwarming CGI elephant do all of the heavy lifting.

Dumbo opens in 1919 Sarasota, Florida. Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) returns from World War One to his home in the Medici Brothers Circus . The diminutive ringmaster, Max Medici (Danny DeVito), has kept watch over his two children, the clever Milly (Nico Parker), and her doting younger brother Joe (Finley Hobbins). They are shocked to see that their father has lost an arm in combat. With his act as a trick horse rider no longer possible, Max assigns Holt to care for the elephants.

Max's hope to save the failing circus is his recently acquired pregnant elephant, Jumbo. A cute baby pachyderm will surely bring back the crowds. He's beyond disappointed when Jumbo births a son with monstrously large ears. Cruelly nicknamed Dumbo by a jeering audience, the wide-eyed calf becomes a media sensation after an unbelievable feat. Dumbo attracts the attention of the famed showman, V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton); who wants to pair the amazing flying elephant with his trapeze artist girlfriend (Eva Green).

Dumbo is an outcast, surrounded, and cared for by others in a similar situation. Everyone in the Medici Circus is labelled as some kind of freak. The film updates the circus performers as a tight knit family. The Farrier children are loved, but ignored by adults and their concerns. Milly and Joe give Dumbo the courage to fly. The film is a parable about the power of belief . Danny DeVito has a great line where he says, "You should listen to your children". The lesson being that they see what is possible, no matter how improbable.

Tim Burton reigns in his proclivity for morbid fantasy. Dumbo is nothing like Alice in Wonderland or Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children . The production design, cinematography, and visual effects stay true to the innocence of the source material. Dumbo has bright blue eyes and endearing expressions throughout. He reminded me of a curious, but slightly frightened puppy you might find at a shelter. Dumbo is also a pro animals rights film . Burton makes a clear statement on the treatment of animals in circuses.

The Dumbo cartoon runs barely over an hour. The film covers that storyline in the first act. The screenplay by Ehren Kruger takes Dumbo into a much larger setting. The outcome is predictable. I've read reactions where some critics branded the plot tepid. Dumbo may not be loaded with surprises or twists, but is far from boring. Dumbo 's journey is inspirational and uplifting. The elephant's effect on the characters will also resonate with audiences. You can't help but root for Dumbo .

Kids are going to love Dumbo . Parents will too, although I guess that depends how cynical they are. Tim Burton has always embraced the plight of the strange and forlorn. Dumbo is his latest outcast champion, but with a softer touch. The film captured everything I liked from the cartoon. Walt Disney Studios now has to pull off the same feat with Aladdin and The Lion King .

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In Theaters

• March 29, 2019
• Colin Farrell as Holt Farrier; Michael Keaton as V. A. Vandevere; Danny DeVito as Max Medici; Eva Green as Colette Marchant; Nico Parker as Milly Farrier; Finley Hobbins as Joe Farrier

Home Release Date

• June 25, 2019

Distributor

• Walt Disney Studios

Movie Review

Twelve-year-old Milly Farrier doesn’t quite fit in her two-bit, fleabag circus world. She’s half a twist off and just a bit too, well, smart . I mean, sure, she’s definitely a part of the Medici Brothers Circus family, who have all loved and cared for her and her little brother, Joe, ever since their mom died of influenza. But Milly … isn’t circus material.

She can’t ride a stallion or juggle or flip. She loves science. In fact, she would rather pitch hay, shovel elephant droppings and read a book all day than even think about being part of a circus act. Nobody in the Medici family of performers can really understand that.

Even when Milly’s dad, Holt, comes back from World War I, Milly’s feelings don’t change. And to be honest, she can tell that her dad feels like an outsider these days, too. He used to be the circus’ horseman extraordinaire. But then he went to war, returning without his left arm to find that his beloved horses have been sold and that his wife has died.

Circus head honcho Max Medici isn’t sending the Farriers packing. But Holt certainly isn’t gonna be a lasso-swinging cowboy star any longer. In fact, there’s really not much for him to do. So he ends up caring for the elephants alongside Milly.

The one bright spot in Milly’s life is the circus’ new baby elephant. Some people think the little guy is a freak, and they label him “Dumbo” since he has a tiny little body and enormous floppy ears. Even Mr. Medici only thinks of the baby elephant as an oddity to be added to the clown act.

But Milly thinks he’s cute. She knows there’s more to little Dumbo than meets the eye.

Like her, Dumbo has something special about him that nobody could possibly understand. And one day as she and little Joe play a game with the baby elephant, the most miraculous thing happens: He accidentally sucks a feather up his trunk, sneezes and, well, flies .

That’s right: He flaps his big ears and sorta takes to the air for just a moment. It’s incredible. Nobody else knows about this bizarre ability, but Milly begins to wonder if maybe she and Joe could work up a special surprise for the whole circus family.

Dumbo is just a half twist off, just a bit too smart. And from Milly’s perspective, that makes him altogether wonderful. Unfortunately, some other folks think Dumbo could be pretty wonderful, too.

As in, wonderful at making them money.

Positive Elements

After a money-hungry entrepreneur named Vandervere swoops in to make Dumbo a star attraction at his theme park, Dreamland, the film makes some pretty strong statements about the evils of exploitative commercialism, animal captivity, and the dark side of the entertainment business. (All of which feels particularly odd in a Disney production.)

Holt Farrier, his two precocious kids and a female trapeze artist named Collete all make sacrifices for one another and especially for Dumbo. The kids promise repeatedly to reunite Dumbo with his mother, Mrs. Jumbo, from whom he’s been separated. In fact, almost everyone in the entire Medici circus eventually works to help Dumbo and his mother to be reunited before the credits roll.

En route to that dramatic finish, Dumbo also suggests that feeling like a misfit is something we all tend to feel at some point in our lives. But that sense of being an outsider doesn’t have to short-circuit our dreams. Instead, we watch as the film’s characters encourage us to hang onto hope, to work hard and to rely on the support of those who love us as we chase our vision of a better tomorrow.

Spiritual Elements

Upon seeing Dumbo’s unique qualities, an Indian snake charmer proclaims, “In my country, people say the gods can take animal form.” Colette performs as a trapeze artist in white who’s called “the queen of the heavens.” Later, she also dons a red outfit and headgear that suggest something more devilish (though not for any particular reason that the film clearly elaborates upon).

Sexual Content

Collete travels with V. A. Vandevere and is seen as his “girlfriend,” though Colette says in private that she’s is just window dressing for the public. “I’m one of the many gems he wears to reflect the lights back on him,” she opines. A few of her outfits reveal a bit of cleavage. Some dancers’ outfits a bit revealing, too.

We see a guy kiss a girl on a Ferris wheel. Max is shown lounging in a bathtub, his chest visible with the rest of him is submerged under bubbles.

Violent Content

Early on, Dumbo’s protective mother is threatened with physical harm by an angry circus roustabout. And later she charges into a circus tent when Dumbo is being jeered at and peppered with objects thrown from a raucous crowd of people.

The jumbo elephant inadvertently knocks down the tent’s massive center post, which sends people screaming in a panic and then crushes a man (off-camera). We see his sheet-covered body being loaded on a truck. Dumbo’s mother is summarily chained up, dragged away and labeled a “Mad Elephant.” (There’s also a statement made later in the film that the elephant will be taken away and killed.)

As the story accelerates toward its dramatic conclusion, so does the action, which at times feels pretty perilous. Dumbo and Collete repeatedly dangle for their lives from a great height. In one scene, there’s a safety net to catch both when they fall. Into a couple of other scenes, though, no such safety measures are there to guarantee their safety.

Another elevated act goes awry as well, leaving, Dumbo stranded on an elevated platform as flames threaten to consume him. Little Milly climbs up a ladder to encourage him to fly away, but she ends up falling quite a ways herself (into a pool of water below her). Likewise, Holt climbs up the outside of a tent (and remember, he only has one arm), then takes a hard, thumping slide off of it. Another fire sends folks scrambling once more (something that frequently seems to happen whenever Dumbo takes flight).

A section of V.A. Vandevere’s Dreamland theme park is a dark and creepy place called Nightmare Island. It’s filled with shadows and scary, growling creatures that we believe escape at one point. The dark, tense vibe of the beasty scene could be frightening for younger or sensitive viewers.

Crude or Profane Language

One unfinished s-word and three uses of “h—” feel quite harsh in this PG-rated film obviously aimed at a pretty young audience. We also hear exclamations of “What the heck?” “son of a gun!” and “good god!” At one point, Max Medici’s circus performers are collectively mocked as “low-rent freaks.”

Drug and Alcohol Content

Other negative elements.

It’s a core part of the story, of course, but Dumbo’s separation from his loving mother remains a poignantly sad thing to watch (although perhaps not quite as heartbreaking as the original version).

And there are other elements of the story that deal with the subject of parents and children being separated as well, such as Milly and Joe’s mother dying from influenza (before the movie begins), as well as their temporary separation from their father before he returns from World War I. Finally, the movie also communicates the idea that if Dumbo can perform well enough, he can earn a reunion with his mother. For these reasons, adoptive and foster parents will want to preview Dumbo before taking children to it.

Elephant droppings are used as a visual gag. Vandevere breaks his word, makes ruthless choices and orders that Dumbo’s mother be killed.

There are a number of things to appreciate about Disney’s rebooted, live-action version of Dumbo . For one thing, director Tim Burton draws on his years of filmmaking experience to create some nicely ornamented visuals, filling his film with a sense of top-shelf production value.

As for the film’s characters, the big-eared, big-eyed baby pachyderm himself is an endearingly cute CGI wonder. The human heroes, of course, act sacrificially to help Dumbo, his mother and one another as well.

The story also delivers inspirational thoughts and moments encouraging kids to make the most of the abilities, and to recognize the important people and blessings in their lives—especially when they feel like they don’t fit with the world around them.

Finally, those digging for deeper themes might unearth a critique of the way the entertainment industry exploits many of those who work in it.

Those nice parts, however, don’t quite add up to the magical whole that you might walk in expecting to find. In fact, the film feels rather flat. Compared to some of Disney’s other recent live-action remakes, Dumbo doesn’t feel as compelling. Add in a dash of director Tim Burton’s penchant for campy creepiness, and some scenes here feel a little too intense for this pic’s intended tender-aged audience. (As do a handful of surprisingly harsh exclamations.)

Dumbo flies, to be sure. But his latest movie never soars.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Dumbo Review

It’s hard to believe that Disney has four live action remakes coming out this year. Four! Kicking things off is 2019’s Dumbo , a remake of the classic 1941 film and the first Tim Burton -helmed project I’ve properly appreciated since 2012’s Frankenweenie . If you catch Dumbo this weekend, I expect you'll find it to be genuinely enjoyable, deliciously dark, and yet appropriate for kids of most ages.

The original Dumbo is a classic Disney film, but it’s not revered in the same way in which certain other classic films are. As a result, this live action remake got to make some more creative choices than other Disney remakes we’ve previously seen.

Given the simple narrative of the original, there was a lot of room for Tim Burton to take the 2019 live action remake in new directions, and both visually and story-wise a lot of chances are taken in Dumbo , specifically in ways I am surprised and tickled that Disney as a studio agreed to.

In this version of Dumbo , the young elephant learns to fly thanks to the machinations of two circus born-and-bred youngsters played by newcomers Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins. After Dumbo’s mother is sold from the circus for producing a dud baby elephant with giant ears, the two kids convince Dumbo to fly in a bid to get his mother back. They are helped in their enterprise by their father Holt ( Colin Farrell ), and propelled to success by the circus owner Max Medici ( Danny DeVito ).

Things get bigger and grander for Dumbo as the movie progresses. In fact, there are moments in Dumbo that feel like pure magic; that capture the intangible feeling Disney has spent years trying to create in its own parks. Notably, there’s a pink elephants homage partially though the film that is entrancing, and without spoiling a huge chunk of the movie, Dumbo is visually delightful and sometimes darker than you would expect for a PG film.

What really stuck with me most, though, wasn’t the visual eye candy or the fun Easter eggs peppered throughout the film, of which there are plenty. Instead, Dumbo is completely banking on people buying into a movie about an (admittedly cute) elephant who doesn’t talk, and yet the stakes are just high enough to pull the production off.

In terms of those stakes, Tim Burton’s Dumbo actually ups the ante quite a bit from some other Disney remakes. There are moments in the movie that feel like a good episode of America’s Got Talent , meaning danger felt present and there was darkness lurking around corners --Tim Burton hallmarks if I’ve ever seen them.

In addition, the casting choices work. I mostly buy Colin Farrell as an “Aww shucks” American horseback rider. Eva Green is delightful working alongside Dumbo, and Michael Keaton gets some excellent moments as Vandervere, a Walt Disney -type, albeit with quite the twist. (Unrelated to Keaton's performance, Vandervere's arc is the biggest problem for me in the film.)

I actually enjoyed nearly every second Michael Keaton’s Vandervere is onscreen, particularly when he’s conversing with banker Remington (Alan Arkin) and Medici. Yet, his motivations and a weird tonal jump for the character contribute to some major problems with the script and the “why” behind what happens in the third act. Ultimately, the movie suffers in pace and tone because of some of the choices that are made.

Dumbo really could have benefitted a little from trimming the fat, perhaps giving the ensemble circus performers a little less to do, particularly in the third act, which turns into a full-on heist movie briefly before petering out. A lengthy, two-part closing sequence also probably could have been cut down or wrapped into the end credits. Even at only 112 minutes the movie still feels like it runs long, and that’s never a good thing.

By its end, the Dumbo remake may feel like a sideshow at the circus, and not one of the Big Top attractions like those coming later in 2019 - but I think most of us would still rather be at the circus than anywhere else this weekend.

Jessica Rawden is Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. She’s been kicking out news stories since 2007 and joined the full-time staff in 2014. She oversees news content, hiring and training for the site, and her areas of expertise include theme parks, rom-coms, Hallmark (particularly Christmas movie season), reality TV, celebrity interviews and primetime. She loves a good animated movie. Jessica has a Masters in Library Science degree from Indiana University, and used to be found behind a reference desk most definitely not shushing people. She now uses those skills in researching and tracking down information in very different ways. 

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Visually impressive remake is sweet but sometimes dark.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Kids will learn a bit about early circus acts and

Messages focus on right and wrong way to treat ani

Mrs. Jumbo is a loving, protective mother. Dumbo d

Several disturbing/upsetting/scary scenes. Cruel a

A couple of longing looks and a kiss between an ad

A couple uses of "hell" and one incomplete "s--t,"

Nothing on camera, but Disney has a lot of merchan

Characters toast good news with champagne. Max's d

Parents need to know that Dumbo is director Tim Burton's live-action take on Disney's 1941 animated classic about everyone's favorite flying elephant. This version -- which stars Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, and Danny DeVito -- keeps the original's spirit while expanding on its storyline and kicking things…

Educational Value

Kids will learn a bit about early circus acts and how they functioned, as well as lessons in honesty, teamwork, compassion.

Positive Messages

Messages focus on right and wrong way to treat animals, how no one should ridicule others because of their appearance, how communities work together to help one another. Promotes idea that our differences help make us special. Children can have a big impact. A mother's love is absolutely unconditional, but the story also uses the idea of Dumbo being able to earn his mother back by doing well -- which could be upsetting for kids/families who've dealt with separation (through adoption, foster care, etc.). Kids don't have to have same dreams and goals as their parents. Themes also include teamwork, empathy, compassion. One "throwaway" line seems to poke fun at emotional overeating.

Positive Role Models

Mrs. Jumbo is a loving, protective mother. Dumbo doesn't speak, but he learns to fly and communicate with the kids. Milly and Joe are kind, patient animal lovers; Milly dreams of being a scientist. Holt is slightly clueless about how to parent at first but loves his kids, keeps them safe -- and learns more about how to relate to them along the way. Colette remembers what it's like to be valued for who she is, rather than what she looks like and can do. Max's circus is made up of people with many unusual talents; ultimately, their special skills are all important. Max typically means well but is a bit selfish -- but it's nothing compared to Mr. Vandevere, who's epitome of valuing profit over people. Some diversity among cast, including within Farrier family.

Violence & Scariness

Several disturbing/upsetting/scary scenes. Cruel animal handler threatens, punches Mrs. Jumbo; Holt hits him. Unsympathetic character crushed to death in tent collapse (body shown being carried out under drape). Mrs. Jumbo goes a bit wild trying to protect/defend Dumbo, causes chaos/panic and damage; she's separated from Dumbo in particularly sad sequence (and he's often sad during ensuing time apart). Mrs. Jumbo is chained up. During performance, Dumbo, surrounded by fire, looks like he's going to fall to injury or death but ultimately flies. Milly, Colette, Holt all fall/slip from heights in other scenes but end up OK. Someone orders Mrs. Jumbo killed. Men with guns pursue Farrier family (including kids); one man knocks a child down. Farrier family is stuck in circus ring surrounded by fire. Flames and destruction. Dreamland attraction "Nightmare Island" is dark and creepy, with scary noises, animals (bear, alligator, "werewolf," etc.) on display. References to Holt's wife/the children's mother's death from influenza; they all miss, mourn her. Holt lost an arm in the war (WWI). During a performance, a gun is used to pop a balloon.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A couple of longing looks and a kiss between an adult couple.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

A couple uses of "hell" and one incomplete "s--t," plus "heck," "son of a gun," "scalawag," "freak."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Nothing on camera, but Disney has a lot of merchandise both through partnerships and their own brands: plush figures, apparel, toys, etc.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Characters toast good news with champagne. Max's desk drawer is shown to have flasks in it.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Dumbo is director Tim Burton 's live-action take on Disney's 1941 animated classic about everyone's favorite flying elephant. This version -- which stars Colin Farrell , Michael Keaton , and Danny DeVito -- keeps the original's spirit while expanding on its storyline and kicking things up in the scariness department thanks to Burton's signature intensity. The movie's vibrant, colorful world is peppered with dark, creepy sequences/elements, including a cruel animal handler, a character who's crushed to death by a collapsing circus tent, armed henchmen who pursue both animals and children, characters in peril/falling from heights, and an amusement park attraction that's aptly named Nightmare Island. There are also some very sad parts, like when Mrs. Jumbo is separated from baby Dumbo, which might prove upsetting for younger/more sensitive viewers and foster and/or adoptive families. Characters also discuss loss (the main kid characters' mom died from influenza). Language is minimal ("hell" and one incomplete "s--t" are about it), and this version of the film thankfully doesn't have the racially stereotyped crow characters or a drunk, hallucinating Dumbo. And it has themes of teamwork, compassion, and empathy and promotes the idea that our differences help make us special. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (64)
• Kids say (33)

Based on 64 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Directed by Tim Burton, DUMBO is set in 1919 at the end of World War I. Veteran Holt Farrier ( Colin Farrell ), who was a famed horse trainer/rider before the war, comes home to his two children, Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins), who live with the traveling Medici Brothers Circus, which is run by irascible ringmaster Max Medici ( Danny DeVito ). Because Holt is now an amputee (he's missing an arm) and his beloved wife died during the 1918 influenza pandemic, Max tells Holt he can't return to his horse act. Instead, Holt is asked to take care of the circus's latest acquisition: Mrs. Jumbo, a pregnant elephant who's about to give birth to a baby that should prove a profitable draw for the troupe. But when Mrs. Jumbo's baby is born with enormous, floppy ears, everyone laughs and calls him "Dumbo." What no one knows is that Milly and Joe have discovered that the little elephant can fly. When Dumbo makes his soaring debut, New York amusement park impresario V. A. Vandevere ( Michael Keaton ) swoops in to convince Max to move to Coney Island and become part of his fabulous Dreamland destination.

Is It Any Good?

Burton's colorful reimagining of Disney's 1941 classic is visually impressive and stars an adorable CGI flying elephant, but the plot and characterizations are underwhelming. Shot entirely indoors, the film uses a ton of special effects, from the digital removal of Holt's arm and the creation of the entirely CGI baby Dumbo to the elaborate backdrops of Dreamland and any outdoor sequence, including the sky itself. The movie's technical aspects -- including the art direction, the costume design (by four-time Academy Award winner Colleen Atwood), and the special effects -- are all outstanding. Music by frequent Burton collaborator Danny Elfman incorporates the touching song "Baby Mine" and other pieces from the original, here rendered as instrumentals rather than with words.

But while there's a certain joy in seeing Burton veterans like Keaton and DeVito reunite, the plot mostly focuses on the Farriers and their interaction with Dumbo. Siblings Milly and Joe have a sweet relationship, but the young actors don't have much familial chemistry with their on-screen father. ( Eva Green , also a Burton regular, can effortlessly evoke mystery and danger at this point in her career and is well cast as Vandevere's star performer, Colette.) And it's a shame that the diverse ensemble that makes up Max's circus isn't used more. Still, the movie's main draw is less the cast than the opportunity to ooh and aah at flying Dumbo -- who, in Burton's vision, gets a happier ever after than in the animated original.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Dumbo 's violent and/or scary scenes. How much scary stuff can young kids handle? What was more upsetting to you: the parts with peril and danger or the sad separations? Why do you think that is?

How do the characters in Dumbo demonstrate courage and empathy ? Why are these important character strengths ?

Discuss the differences between this version and the original. Why do you think certain aspects of the first film needed to be changed? Is there anything missing that you'd have liked to see?

One of the movie's messages is that our differences help make us special. Do you agree? How do you see that reflected in your own, everyday life?

How accurately do you think the movie portrays early-1900s circus troupes? Why has the circus become a controversial form of entertainment in more recent decades?

Movie Details

• In theaters : March 29, 2019
• On DVD or streaming : June 25, 2019
• Cast : Colin Farrell , Danny DeVito , Eva Green , Michael Keaton
• Director : Tim Burton
• Studio : Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
• Genre : Family and Kids
• Topics : Brothers and Sisters , Wild Animals
• Character Strengths : Compassion , Empathy , Teamwork
• Run time : 105 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : peril/action, some thematic elements, and brief mild language
• Last updated : February 18, 2023

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'Dumbo' 2019 Review: Disney Stretches Nostalgia to Its Absolute Limits

Tim Burton's "live-action" remake manages to tell an enjoyable story that’s true to original movie’s tone.

Disney is betting big on nostalgia in 2019. Meticulous “live-action” homages to two of its most popular animated movies ever, Aladdin and The Lion King , are coming later this year, but before that, the studio is treating fans to something a little more weird: a Tim Burton-directed remake of the often overlooked 1941 classic, Dumbo . This new live-action version (heavy on the CGI) stretches the bounds of how far nostalgia can take the mega-studio, but it still manages to tell an enjoyable story that’s true to original movie’s tone — even if it takes some elephant-sized leaps with the actual plot.

2019’s Dumbo isn’t really a live-action remake like the ones we’ve begrudgingly come to expect from Disney. It’s more like Burton watched the original and then let it seep into his dreams. The new version features occasional references to iconic Dumbo moments (Danny Devito’s circus master humming the tune to “ Casey Junior ” is an absolute gift), but for the most part this is a brand new story full of human characters — a big departure from the animal-focused original.

Why is Colin Farrell in this movie? I'm still not really sure.

The new Dumbo opens on Devito’s circus and quickly hones in on a pair young siblings and their father (Colin Farrell), who’s just returned from war after losing an arm. We don’t even meet Dumbo for several more scenes, but it’s hard to blame Burton for trying to stretch his 64-minute source material into a feature length movie by padding the story a bit. To that end, we also get a villain in Michael Keaton, who hams it up as an evil circus-owner (this is a slight spoiler, but the twist should come as a surprise to absolutely no one), alongside Eva Green as his trapeze artist. Alan Arkin also shows up as a banker financing the entire thing.

The plot is pretty simple: As soon as Dumbo’s flying elephant act begins to draw a crowd to Devito’s traveling show, Keaton swoops with an offer to join forces and relocate the entire troupe to his retro-futuristic amusement park. It quickly becomes clear that Keaton’s deal was too good to be true, leading to a climactic face-off between good and evil.

At the core of the story, of course, is Dumbo, but this CGI’d baby elephant is never given much motivation besides being cute and wanting to spend time with his mother. By the end of the movie, Dumbo faces his fears in heroic fashion, but he’s missing the personality that Disney breathed so effortlessly into its animated characters more than half a century earlier.

This remake tries to replace the original movie’s emotional core with human characters and their various relationships with Dumbo. The kids love him. The adults try to profit off him. Eventually, some of the adults realize he’s actually a very good elephant and try to help him. The stakes are high enough stakes here to keep you engaged, and there’s enough humor to keep you entertained, but it’s hard to care that much about the relationship between human actors and CGI trickery. In the moment you may feel something, but once the credits roll that quickly fades away.

More importantly, Dumbo seems to prove that Disney’s nostalgia bender may be reaching its limits. Sure, we’ve still got Aladdin and The Lion King right around the corner, both of which are likely to break box office records, but if Tim Burton’s bizarre remake proves anything, it’s that not every Disney movie is worth remaking in CGI and live action.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t see Dumbo . If you loved the original you’ll find something to enjoy in this one, even if it’s just those sprinkled-in references to the 1941 classic. Burton also manages to capture the darker tone of the animated movie, meaning it might be a little too intense at times for younger children.

Go into Dumbo with no expectations and you’ll enjoy it, but if you’re hoping for a shot-by-shot remake or a genuinely great new Disney movie you’ll likely be disappointed. At best, this is just an appetizer in the studio’s swollen 2019 calendar. It’s definitely not the main course.

Dumbo flies into theaters on March 29.

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‘Dumbo’ (2019) Film Review

The new live-action remake of the Disney animated classic Dumbo is helmed by the darkly eccentric director Tim Burton and his latest film is like nothing I’ve ever seen from the master of juxtaposition: Safe, almost tepid, and it’s monotonously boring.

Most of Disney’s animated classics have a dark history behind them. The origin of Cinderella is filled with dark secrets. For example, the stepmother making her daughters cut off their toes to fit their feet in their slippers. And, no joke, eventually having their eyes devoured by pigeons at the wedding. In Sleeping Beauty , Aurora is not woken up by a kiss but by giving birth to twins. Naturally, the bastard runs off, leaving her to raise the children on her own. So, naturally, I was excited when I heard the darkly eccentric Tim Burton was at the helm of a new live-action version of the Disney animated classic Dumbo . The master of juxtaposition behind such gothic, almost fairytale classics as Edwards Scissor Hands, A Nightmare Before Christmas, and Beatle Juice. His latest is unlike anything I’ve ever seen from him before: Safe, almost tepid, and it’s monotonously boring.

The film begins with a soldier (Colin Farrell) named Holt. He is coming home from the war with injuries that go beyond his right arm being amputated. Holt lost his wife to great influenza. He is now home to help heal not only his own broken heart but that of his two young children named Milly and Joe (Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins). They welcome him at the train station with his old boss Max (Danny DeVito). He runs the circus he and his wife perform in. Max has been looking after his kids, and his band of traveling entertainers is on its last legs.

That’s until Jumbo the elephant gives birth to a doe-eyed calf with an abnormally sized pair of ears that make Max feel they are more of a defected investment than a gifted one. Soon, they realize “Dumbo” can fly and save their big-top, until V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton) gets wind and wants Dumbo for his latest attraction, Dreamland. He sees the future. The fast-rising star is the perfect attraction for financing to keep his theme park afloat.

The original Dumbo (1941) clocked in at 64 minutes, while Burton’s version is just under two hours. The new version of Dumbo feels like a bloated version of the original. With a story you have seen thousands of times before. Filled with great special effects but lacking any true character development needed for a movie of two hours and source material half of that. One explanation is that Ehren Kruger wrote the film script, best known for writing three of the five films in the Transformers series . This time, we don’t have robots blasting each other to help pass the time for two-plus hours, and you can find more three-dimensional characters in a Fathead factory.

As mentioned, the film has some good qualities. The top-notch special effects, The overall message of acceptance (though most of these are manipulative and full of melodrama). The first scene of Dumbo being able to fly effectively is done. Though, it’s repeated a handful of times in the same way, making me think it was all about filler. The film is a safe picture for families, and any child under ten may find it entertaining. Most of the humor falls flat. Anyone who is a fan of the genre will quickly find themselves in very familiar territory.

Then there is director Tim Burton. Who, by all accounts, took his check and cashed it. You can even speculate that he let the good people of Disney steer him to safer waters. With a source material that has a short run time, you would think a man with Burton’s pedigree of dark, gothic, and aberrant filmography would have a wide palate to expand on the classic film and put his own twist on things. His version of Planet of the Apes has more personality than this film. This Dumbo doesn’t really have a dark Burton bone in it, which is desperately needed.

If you want some fun, charming, gothic, eccentric storytelling with an unusual plot and delightfully different characters, rent Burton’s Big Fish , which has only gotten better with age, or watch the original Dumbo  with your kids. Otherwise, make sure the phone is charged and sit in the back row, so you won’t bother other guests while you browse social media and play a game of Angry Birds or two.

Article by Marc Miller

Marc Miller (also known as M.N. Miller) joined Ready Steady Cut in April 2018 as a Film and TV Critic, publishing over 1,600 articles on the website. Since a young age, Marc dreamed of becoming a legitimate critic and having that famous “Rotten Tomato” approved status – in 2023, he achieved that status.

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DUMBO (2019)

"beloved story achieves new heights".

What You Need To Know:

Miscellaneous Immorality: Greed, anger, deceit, but rebuked.

More Detail:

A live action version of the 1941 animated classic, DUMBO tells the beloved story of a young elephant with big ears who can fly but then is separated from his mother. Directed by Tim Burton, DUMBO is beautifully made, with a strong moral worldview about the need for family and helping others, along with lots of suspense that may scare very young children.

Holt Farrier returns from the war to see his children and continue working at the Medici Circus. When Holt sees his children and everyone at the circus, they are thrilled he’s back, but they see he’s lost one of his arms in the war. Also, his wife has died from influenza.

The circus hasn’t been well either. Max Medici, the owner, has had to make some cutbacks. One thing Max has done is buy an elephant who’s pregnant. Max immediately puts Holt in charge of taking care of the elephant. When the elephant has a little baby, the entire circus is thrilled, but the baby looks different than any other elephant that they have ever seen, with huge ears and a small head.

Holt’s children, Milly and Joe, love the little elephant and eventually call him Dumbo. When they are trying to make Dumbo comfortable, they find out that he can fly. They think, that if only Dumbo will fly for the others, then he can become a big act in the circus and save the circus from going bankrupt.

It is finally time for Dumbo to perform in the circus ring, and he does indeed fly, but commotion ensues and his mother gets angry. The entire circus tent goes under, and his mother is taken away. Dumbo is saddened, but now Max, Holt and the rest of the circus know that Dumbo can fly and can save the circus. When an entrepreneur comes to town to see Dumbo, he wants to take the entire Medici circus to his theme park called Dreamland. The question is, will Dumbo perform at Dreamland without his mother?

This live-action version of the classic 1941 cartoon DUMBO is extremely well made. Tim Burton has done a great job expanded the story and making the story interesting, but not as dark as many of his other movies. The movie still has the feel, tone and quirkiness of a Tim Burton movie.

Young children may get scared from the movie’s suspense. Also, some of the acting done by the children in the film could be better, but it shouldn’t distract audiences. It is interesting that Burton has added in some odes to Disneyland, with Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress and the overall feel of the theme park Dreamland. The entrepreneurial character who creates Dreamland has a cynical undertone, which leaves audiences wondering the message Burton was trying to say about Walt Disney. Overall, however, audiences will enjoy this version of DUMBO, just as they enjoyed the 1941 version of the animated movie.

DUMBO has a strong moral worldview about the importance of family. The entire premise of the movie is based on the idea that families should be together and children need their mother and their father. The movie has a positive, moral worldview that will leave audiences crying, laughing and smiling. Also, several times, the movie mentions miracles. There are some light environmental worldview elements to the movie, but they mostly show that human beings have a duty to take care of animals.

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Dumbo (2019)

Dove Review

The Synopsis:

A young elephant, whose oversized ears enable him to fly, helps save a struggling circus. But when the circus plans a new venture, Dumbo and his friends discover dark secrets beneath its shiny veneer.

The Review:

Tim Burton’s Dumbo jumps from animation to live action, yet loses its emotion on takeoff. Visually, the film’s production is great, but the vacuum of emotion and interest renders the experience more benign than bold. A cotton candy-colored sunset, bubbles floating and flexing into pachyderm proportions, even a trapeze act on a chandelier that could be from Gatsby’s mansion—while worth praising for direction, production, and performance, these effects can only carry everything so far. It’s uncompellingly slower, heavier, and darker than the 1941 film; like a beautiful hot-air balloon with too many needless sandbags.

Dumbo may have appealing aspects, but it’s rather banal—and not simply by comparing it to the older Dumbo . They’re their own films. While this Dumbo emphasizes drama (with more language and dark vibe), the drama is so straightforward it could seem cliché, though seemingly aimed at a more grown-up audience. The heavier and darker elements are unnecessarily abrasive rather than mature. There are some great, and potentially memorable, sequences of circus extravagance, and the story at its core is timeless. But major attention is on less effective or engaging things.

The character and story of Dumbo are wonderful. The question is if this film has our elephant friend flying as high as he could.

There is some content, including a character saying “to H— with it”. Dumbo is Dove-Approved Ages 12+.

Dove Rating Details

Threatening and mean talk to elephant; a man hits another man, and there is some blood on the other man’s face and from his nose; an elephant throws a man; a man is crushed by a beam, and his body is seen, but not overly graphic; a main character was a soldier, and lost his right arm; talk of influenza, and how it killed people; talk about killing an elephant, and also implying to make it into boots (also implying that the boots which we see a character wear are made from elephant); people pushed and pulled into water; a character is kicked; a character is thrown; a character is pushed; a man dragged by horse; a man grabs another man; a gun shoots balloons; danger.

Mention of someone running off with someone; an uncomfortable kiss on the side of the face; talk of a character pretending to be another character’s girlfriend; a couple almost kisses; a woman affectionately kisses an elephant; a man and woman kiss.

H-1; “to H--- with it”; “h--- of a show”; a man almost says S; a character says “Good God”; “gosh”; “what the heck”; “goddess”; “son of a gun”; name-calling; “shut up”; multiple times, the word “freaks” may be said in a mean way.

Bottles of alcohol; drinking “booze”; mention of alcohol; a flask is seen.

Formfitting and somewhat revealing outfits/costumes; performer tights, skirts that are short; some cleavage; swimsuit; a man in a bath

Talk about sad and heavy things, such as characters’ dead mom; negative talk; kids disobey, and do things without parents; talking about how a father leaving was positive; talk of how a girl “runs away to go to school”; some danger, such as heights and falling; lying; talk of a dead character knowing that a character is somewhere, and is presented as positive; mention of gods taking animal form; a character who’s a performer, perhaps as part of her acting, looks to water and says, “return me to the vast abyss”; talk of breaking rules; mannequins have traditional gender clothing swapped; some jokes, including about war; some stunts which may be dangerous to attempt, such as juggling knives; a prosthetic arm which some may find unsettling; animal dung is seen and stepped in; creepy and scary things and noises, including a place called “Nightmare Island” (including scary names and words) at a theme park; a jump-scare, and maybe more; fire; clowns with padded posteriors; a skull; “bewitching”; panic

More Information

Film information, dove content.

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