DUMBO
I
am a massive Tim Burton fan to the point that I am sure many people
could accuse me of being an apologist for this great director. Most
people these days feel that Burton has lost his touch and becoming a
caricature of his himself, but I can genuinely say with hand on heart
that I have enjoyed all of Burton's recent features that have been
poorly received. Even when the films aren't the greatest, there is
always something that I really enjoy in them (“Dark Shadows” is
the perfect example of this). However, very early on during the
production of “Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children”, when
it was announced that Burton's following film would be a live-action
remake of “Dumbo”, I must admit I was livid, and thought it was
a waste of his talents and a terrible idea altogether. In my mind, I
just could not see how they could make the animated classic from 1941
work as a live-action film. For one of the first times in my life, I
was not looking forward to a Tim Burton film.
Cut
to a year or so later when the film's teaser trailer was released and
after watching it, I thought that maybe this wasn't going to be as
bad as I expected, although admittedly there still wasn't a huge lot
to go on. Then when the film was released, so too came the
(predictably) negative reviews. The film was soulless, a travesty to
the original, Burton has lost his magic, blah blah blah. Honestly,
in this day and age it almost appears chic to attack a Tim Burton
film in a review, but I am ashamed to admit that these reviews did
affect my own will to rush out and see the film. It was about two
weeks after it had been released that I decided that I really should
make the effort to see “Dumbo” on the big screen, so made my way
out to do so. The cinema was fairly bare, almost as a precursor of
what was to come, as it appeared no one was too interested in the
film. The film began and to my surprise I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!!!
Seriously, I was blown away by Tim Burton's version of “Dumbo”
and loved (almost) everything about it.
The
parts of the original film that I could not get my head around
working in a live-action film, such as all of the talking animals,
Burton did away with. Gone are the talking storks, elephants and
mice, but beautifully, Burton does make reference to them all. Even
that weird looking train, “Casey Jnr.”, from the animated film is
referenced in the train's design here, which brought a smile to my
face. One of the greatest moments of this remake is when Burton also
finds a way to make reference to the truly bizarre “Pink Elephants
on Parade” scene, that occurs in the original when Dumbo is drunk.
It is such an odd scene in the animated film that I was sure that it
would not be retained here, but Burton came up with the most
magnificent way to include it. One of the biggest aspects in regards
to the 1941 film that Burton and his team had to overcome with their
version was it's short running time. At only sixty four minutes
long, the story is far too short to pad out and stretch to feature
length and still make it work. As such, this new version follows the
original story for the first hour before branching off on its own
where Dumbo is sold as the attraction of a new and very large theme
park, before he then sets off to find his mother who he is separated
from earlier in the film. For mine, all of this new material works
wonderfully well and fits with the first, more familiar hour of the
film. While the film is rated PG, the second half goes to some quite
dark places but with Burton behind the wheel, this is really no
surprise.
One
aspect of the film where Tim Burton excelled at is in his casting.
Nearly everyone is fantastic here, with Danny DeVito being the
absolute stand out playing the kind-hearted ringmaster of the circus.
It is the first time DeVito and Burton have worked together since
“Big Fish” from 2003, and as great as he was as The Penguin in
“Batman Returns”, I think I would have to say that his
performance here is his best in a Burton film yet. The reunions
don't stop there though as Michael Keaton appears for the first time
in a Burton film since 1992, the aforementioned Batman sequel being
the last time the two worked together. Sadly though, it is his
performance that is the only thing that I do not love about “Dumbo”.
It is not that he is bad per se, but it screams caricature rather
than character; his character never rang true for me. Eva Green was
delightful as the elegant trapeze artist, while Colin Farrell oozed
charm as the children's father and a war veteran who lost his arm in
battle. Speaking of the children, both Finley Hobbins and Nico
Parker are great in their roles (and thankfully never annoying, like
kids can be in movies), with Parker the spitting image of her mother,
Thandie Newton.
Now
onto Dumbo himself, and I am delighted to say that I just fell in
love with his design. He is obviously a full cgi creation, but the
animators have given the elephant so much character and big beautiful
eyes, that you cannot help but feel for this creature's plight.
Amazingly, he fits perfectly into the world and you believe he is
there amongst the actors. While his mother has been designed more as
a photo-realistic elephant, Dumbo himself is slightly exaggerated in
areas, but it just works so well. He feels alive, and you just care
for him so much. The little fella is just so damned cute!
Behind
the scenes, and once again Tim Burton has created another stunningly
good looking film with “Dumbo”. This time around he has used Ben
Davis as his cinematographer, and the pair have created gorgeous
images leaning towards a lot of blues and reds. Burton's regular
composer, Danny Elfman, has come up with one of his best scores yet
here and there were moments during the film, like when Dumbo takes
flight, when the music just takes over and the whole thing becomes
sublime. Man, I love this film.
I
could honestly talk about this film for ages, but what must be
apparent by now is that Tim Burton's “Dumbo” will feature in my
Top Twenty of 2019, so I should leave some things to talk about
there. Suffice to say, I was very pleasantly surprised by just how
much I ended up adoring “Dumbo”. It is such a great, and
beautiful family film, and I also consider it Burton's best film
since 2007's “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”,
something I never anticipated when the film was first announced.
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