Review: "Dumbo" Passes with Flying Colors While the Supporting Cast Doesn't

Scene from Dumbo (2019)

If it had to happen, it makes sense that director Tim Burton would choose to adapt Dumbo to a modern audience. As a filmmaker who has long been the poster child for outsider cinema, there are few iconic Disney characters as odd as an elephant with giant ears and the ability to fly. Following the billion dollar grossing-misfire Alice in Wonderland, his return to the house of mouse is a much more pleasant one, at least in the sense that it has plenty of heart and is a ton of fun. By expanding on the hour-long original, Burton is able to create an original narrative not only of what it means to be an outsider, but how society mistreats the unfortunate. While Dumbo doesn't stick the landing figuratively, it's, for the most part, a fun exercise in the director finding his style for a mainstream audience with most of his key elements working. It helps that the elephant is cute and the sentiment is pure, even if the outer trappings are at times a bit too obvious.

The one thing that should be known about this Dumbo is that Burton doesn't like the circus. It could just be that the 21st-century discourse overwhelms the narrative, but there's not a single moment of spectacle to be had in the three-ring circus. In spite of selling it as a place of wonder through a fun opening montage where the train Casey Jr. travels across southeast America, the story quickly turns to a miserable beat. The year is 1919, and Max Medici (Danny DeVito) is largely bankrupt, unable to pay his crew. Similarly, Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) has returned from World War I with a missing arm, which handicaps him from riding a horse. The circus is in need of a good gimmick, which is rapidly disappearing as Medici sells everything for some spare change. He has one last hope in an exotic elephant named Jumbo, who gives birth to a child with big ears. Nobody wants him, save for Holt's children who discover that he can fly with the help of a feather.

This alone is the spectacle that audiences would want when buying a ticket to Dumbo in 2019. Burton knows this and milks footage of the glorious CGI creation flying through circus tents to a crowd of gawking audiences. There's a sweet sentimentality to it that should be carried throughout the rest of the film. Dumbo the elephant is cute and very emphatic. The film could get by just watching him walk around the circus for 90 minutes to an adoring public. Instead, it's sandwiched into a much odder story that seems critical of circus behavior. This is in part because P.E.T.A. approached Burton prior to the film's production asking to make a more animal-friendly narrative. While the film achieves it, the road there is maybe the film's biggest conflict. If a character is evil, they're annoying about it to the point that the audience expects penance. The altruistic characters are easy to love, and Dumbo is almost free of any fault besides being manipulated by the bigger system.

It also doesn't help that at the center of the conflict is Medici, who is maybe the shadiest businessman in modern Disney cinema. He can draw audiences, but every performance that Burton portrays ends with a tent either catching on fire or being ripped mercilessly apart. There's no moment to have fun unless Dumbo and acrobat Colette Marchant (Eva Green) is involved. While it isn't wrong to argue that the original had some negative opinions about the circus, they appear much more subtle than they do here. With limited exceptions, every circus moment feels cynical, as if lying down the anti-corporate narrative. It becomes much more baffling when considering that the film's second act takes place at Dream Land, which is a warped Americana stand-in for a certain house of mouse. At the center is a mustache-twirling owner named V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton), who seems evil for evil's sake.

Much to the delight of P.E.T.A., the film is very much against the practices of circuses using animals for human amusement. It's not a terrible message to share, and Burton shoots the Dumbo scenes with such a deeply rooted empathy that it works. However, there's something about the third act that feels disingenuous. As the film revels in beautiful, soaring shots of Dumbo flying across the circus, we're left with one of the biggest, most destructive endings of Burton's career. It's so chaotic that it would make Michael Bay blush. However, it's also evident that while the film makes everything in Dumbo's narrative work, the supporting characters are undermined. There's no care for the "freaks" that Medici works with other than that they are poor little oddballs. All that matters is that this institution is constantly being mocked and destroyed in a way that works as bold-faced propaganda, but little else.

Still, there's a power to when Dumbo gets things right. To see him fly is one of the few reasons that live-action Disney remakes work. It may be goofy and push the limits of sugary nonsense, but there's awe to the film's hidden optimism. It's more creative with its homage to the original film (most of its problematic elements have been repurposed) and for brief moments it reminds audiences why they like Burton. He has the power to give outsider characters a deeper sympathy, making them seem like us. While this is yet another film that fails to rise above to the masterwork of the director's older work, it is one of his better releases of the past 10 years. It comes with enough heart and humor to recommend as well as a message prescient to modern audiences. While those annoyed by the film criticizing of elephant treatment in an inaccurate setting may find more to complain about, it works within what the film is trying to do. It's sweet, scary, and most of all it works. It does enough right to be entertaining and charming and most of all, remind audiences why Dumbo was always more than a second-tier Disney character.