Dumbo

This past Saturday afternoon, we ventured forth from the Fortress of Ineptitude to go see Dumbo. 

 

It was not an excursion made under the best of circumstances.  Daughter Randie was having some particularly bad allergic reactions to the weaponized pollen that hits central North Carolina.  She spent the last few days miserable as hell. Still, there was a determination to not let the whole weekend go by without doing something for crying out loud. So a trip to see Disney turn another animated classic into a  live action movie seemed to be the thing to do.

 

 Dumbo (2019) hits the key emotional points of the original film. An elephant gives birth to a baby with oversized ears that make the new elephant an object of ridicule, derisively called "Dumbo". Those same ears also give Dumbo the ability to fly.  Like in the animated film. Dumbo gets separated from his mom after her efforts to protect her child get her labeled as a rogue elephant. 

 

But this new film tracks a parallel narrative with its human cast.  We meet Holt, back from the first World War missing an arm. 

 

He's also missing a wife who died during the big flu epidemic of 1918. Holt returns to his two kids and his old civilian stomping grounds, the Medici Brothers Circus.

 

Speaking of "missing", the Medici Brothers Circus is missing a lot of the spark it had before Holt left for the war. As circus owner Max Medici informs Holt, the flu epidemic hit the circus hard.

 

But he has made an investment in the future, the purchase of a female and very pregnant elephant, Mrs. Jumbo. And Max wants to put Holt in charge of the elephants.

 

But Holt doesn't want wrangle elephants. He wants things the way they were.

 

Which is the crux of Holt’s conflict. There is no going back; there is only going forward in a world that Holt doesn’t understand. His children, especially his daughter, frustrates him. Their mother knew exactly what to do, what to say. Holt is clueless. All he knew from the circus was tricking riding horses; the horses are long gone, sold by Max to cut costs. Instead he’s tending to elephants.

 

Everyone’s kind of stuck. Milly, Holt’s daughter, is caught up leading the wandering life of the circus when all she wants to do is be a scientist.

 

Max is stuck trying to drum up business for a flailing and dying circus. Outwardly, Max is a grumpy huckster looking to score a buck but the circus is important to him, beyond the allure of money and showmanship.

 

Then what seems like a miracle arrives in the form of Mr. Vandevere, a bigger than life showman who has his own theme park, Dreamland, and he’s willing to give Max and his struggling circus a home at Dreamland. Of course he has his eye on the flying elephant.

 

 Inevitably, the miracle unravels to nightmare as Vandevere’s impatience and greed gets in the way of success. He has all the pieces in place to advance Dreamland and his own fortunes but Vandevere’s is so caught up in his own ego, his overwhelming need to control. He won’t let go and it costs him everything.

 

It’s a lesson Dumbo learns. The feather he held so firmly in his trunk that helped him to fly, he discovers he can let it go and still can fly. 

 

OK, that’s a lot of deep thinking about a movie about a flying elephant.

 

The live action Dumbo is not a great movie. It is a pleasant diversion that does something different with the classic story but still honors the original film.

 

The circus train in the new film actualizes the train from the animated movie, including the Casey Jr train engine. 

 

There’s an homage to “Pink Elephants” on parade and it does not involve Dumbo becoming intoxicated. 

 

Director Tim Burton pulls back on his excesses a bit but there are recognizable flourishes of Burton’s fanastical perspective.

 

From Burton’s past. Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito from Batman Returns are reunited. DeVito is surprisingly nuanced as Max Medici while Keaton has a field day as the conniving Vandevere .

 

It is a bit odd that a Disney film has a villain that’s a pastiche of Walt Disney. Dreamland is a steam punk version of Disney World. 

 

All in all, Dumbo was a good time out of the house. It was a good time to believe an elephant can fly. 

Eva Green as French acrobat Colette chillin' with Dumbo