Dumbo

Starring: Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Eva Green, Alan Arkin, Nico Parker, Finley Hobbins

Director: Tim Burton

A year after his wife died, former circus star Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) returns from war without his right arm and rejoins his kids Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins) at the struggling circus. Joe finds himself demoted by the owner of the circus, Max Medici (Danny DeVito), to tending to the elephants. When one is discovered to be pregnant, Max wants to use the baby elephant's birth as a way to get people back to the circus. Max is disappointed when the baby elephant is born with over-sized ears and after a disastrous debut that results in the elephant earning the nickname Dumbo, sells the mother away. It is soon discovered that with the help of a feather, Dumbo’s over-sized ears allow him to fly. With audiences back at the circus, the attention catches the eye of V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton) who buys Max’s circus and plans on using Dumbo to bring headlines and massive profit to his enterprise Dreamland. Let’s get this out of the way upfront, Dumbo the elephant is adorable. The movie goes out of its way to establish this and we often see that Dumbo is as enamored with the world as the world is enamored with him. This adorableness makes it slightly difficult to watch some scenes, especially those where he is consistently separated from his mother or where people laugh at him. Maybe it’s my love of animals that made those scenes so potent. This all flows back to the fact that the emotional connection to Dumbo is so strong that the human characters floated to the background for me. That’s not to say that the actors do a bad job, with the exception of a terribly miscast Michael Keaton, but their characters aren’t given much development, with the exception of Milly. Tim Burton, whose last couple films I didn’t particularly care for (I fell asleep in Alice in Wonderland and Miss Peregrine was serviceable) really rebounded in my book. Noticeably absent are most of the usual Burton visual staples. He even finds some great ways to make some call backs to the beloved 1941 film. Maybe Disney was in on it or maybe they were too busy acquiring Fox to notice the fact that this is a very anti-Disney story. The fact that this even came out a week after the merger made this more noticeable. Everything that takes place at Dreamland had a very Disneyland/Disney World feel. Also, kudos to Disney for not shying away from some of the more unappealing aspects of circus life, mostly in the treatment of animals and the attractions. I really hope this finds an audience past opening weekend. Even though it slips into an action-y third act, it was all very compelling to me and filled me with child-like wonder. A