I know this isn't an animated feature, but seeing as how I reviewed the original Dumbo for this movie's release, I figured I might as well share my first impressions on it.
As a whole, I don't typically care for the Disney live-action remakes, while I do think some of these remakes are ideal, especially with older films like Cinderella, with movies like this I really have to wonder why. Dumbo is a movie where, even in live action, you would have to animate the flying elephant, but at least this is one of their older movies, so that gives it a leg up over The Lion King. However, with Tim Burton directing and some decent looking trailers, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious.
I am sad to say that Dumbo was not a very good movie, though saying that is kind of weird. Not because this movie has some good parts to it, but because this movie isn't really Dumbo. The original Dumbo was about Dumbo and his life in the circus. Here, it's more like Mary Poppins Returns. Instead of watching the circus interact with Dumbo, we watch some children and their struggling relationship with their father. This movie is about a young boy and a young girl being visited by a surreal being that helps them with their relationship with their distant parent... Oh, and the mother died off screen before the movie began. Yeah, this movie is just Mary Poppins Returns, but with bad CG animation instead of really good traditional animation.
Plot wise, things are moved around. Dumbo hugging his mother is moved to earlier in the film, and the revelation of Dumbo being able to fly, the biggest part of the first movie, is now revealed in the first act. In some respects I get why, as it makes the reveal of Dumbo not needing the feather to fly an overall better reveal, but on the other hand, Dumbo flying was already a big reveal. Then again, this movie is not about Dumbo. In fact, this movie is so not about Dumbo that this movie actually has a villain, an honest to god, single minded villain.
I think the most disappointing aspect of this movie is the visuals, they might be the worst part about this movie... Actually no, the worst part is the child actress in this movie, she was monotone and unconvincing and just plain terrible, but the visuals are close. The movie looks bland and grey, which is stupid. Tim Burton has done colourful movies before, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands, Hell Sleepy Hollow was more colourful than this, and that movie was supposed to look muddy and dark. I get that the circus is not very cheerful, but even in the "Dream Land" location, it looks like a location in the world of Fallout.
I don't think this movie really needed to be Dumbo. I feel like you could have put any magical, ethereal or eldritch being in place of Dumbo and the movie would be largely the same. With talented writers, the circus motif could have even been kept. Like I previously stated, this movie is very much Mary Poppins Returns, so I have to ask why they decided to make it a Dumbo movie, other than the money it would generate due to having a nostalgic connection.
The new Dumbo movie is not good. Calling it a remake is untrue as it is a completely different story, it's visually bland, does not remake scenes from the original well and had no real reason to be a Dumbo movie. I think Disney and Tim Burton could have done better, and I'm going to leave you with one final thought; If we could sympathize with an unrealistic animated elephant in the 1940s, we can sympathize with one today.
Those were my first thoughts on Dumbo. See you next time at the Odeon.
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