Big ears, bigger jeers

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This article was published 29/03/2019 (2056 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OK, going in, a confession: I’m not a fan of Disney’s live-action remakes of animated hits.

They seem simultaneously redundant and indulgent. Also, they feel vaguely heretical in the assumption that photorealistic computer animation is somehow superior to old-school cel animation.

So director Tim Burton’s version of Dumbo is pretty bad, but not because it dares to reinterpret a classic of Disney canon. (It’s not like there wasn’t room for improvement; pretty sure nobody will miss the racist shucking-and-jiving crows of the 1941 original.) No, it’s awful because it mindlessly sacrifices simplicity by layering on seemingly dozens of characters, needless complications of plot and the application of a madly rococo sensibility to production design.

At least Burton is consistent. He screws up Dumbo in precisely the same way he messed up Lewis Carroll’s adventures of Alice in Wonderland (as director) and Alice Through the Looking Glass (as producer) with a more-is-more ethos.

Burton and screenwriter Ehren Kruger dispense with any talking animals whatsoever this time out as we find ourselves in the decrepit travelling circus of Max Medici (Danny DeVito).

The year is 1919, and the once-flourishing show is a shabby, bare-bones affair. Returning to the fold after serving in the First World War is former trick rider Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell), now missing both his left arm and his wife. Holt’s missus died in the influenza epidemic earlier that year, we learn, leaving Holt to care for his two kids, the smart would-be scientist Milly (Nico Parker) and son Joe (Finley Hobbins), a kid so nondescript it feels like it slipped Kruger’s mind to give him a personality. (Both kids are essentially stand-ins for the supportive Timothy Q. Mouse from the original. Call it anthropomorphism in reverse.)

The horses are gone, so Holt is put in charge of the elephants.

He finds his hands full with Mrs. Jumbo, a new acquisition who promptly gives birth to Dumbo, a baby elephant whose overly large ears cause consternation for Max who, remember, presides over a freak show.

When Mrs. Jumbo hears her baby taunted by the crowds, she goes on a rampage, which results in her being sold off. The Farrier kids, relating to Dumbo’s motherless state, step in to take care of the baby elephant and discover his ears can facilitate flight.

Once Max realizes the possibilities, he is on the verge of making Dumbo a star attraction, when he is courted by the P.T. Barnum-like mega-showman V. A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton), who offers to make Max a partner in his new proto-theme park. All he has to do is partner Dumbo with the elegant French aerialist Collette Marchant (Eva Green).

Some of the elements of the screenplay are admirable. Trust Burton to turn the Walt Disney-esque showman Vandevere into a villain… in a Disney movie.

The script also comes out in favour of empowering young girls and against using animals in the circus. If the movie was a policy paper, you might be able to get behind it.

But artistically, it’s a mess. In the Alice movies, it was Johnny Depp who was given free rein to transform the Mad Hatter into a look-at-me star turn that pretty much derailed the movie. This time out, Keaton (who played Batman and Beetlejuice for Burton) is all over the map with his fluctuating accents and eccentric line readings.

Like Dumbo’s ears, Burton’s movie is just too big. Unlike Dumbo’s ears, his movie fails to take flight.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing