#79 Dumbo (Disney Remake Marathon)

OK, of all the films to give to Tim Burton, why this one?

I get giving Tim Burton another Disney remake, much as his Alice remake sucks, like a lot, it did make a lot of money for Disney and this was likely in production before Disney found out about the long-term damage it caused with the failure of Into the Looking Glass. But Tim Burton is more a visual director, he has a unique style and Dumbo, it’s a fairly simplistic tale.

But it’s not just Burton here, who did they get to write this? Ehren Kruger? OK, what’s his history?

Oh… Oh no!

The film had a quite substantial $170m budget, a decision Disney would live to regret as it made a $350m at the box office. With marketing costs factored in, the film needed a $500m win to break even, so the film lost money.

The animated Dumbo is perplexing and very much a production of its time, not just because of its unfortunate ethnic stereotypes. The film had a very low budget, partly attributed to the financial failure of Fantasia and partly to the war closing the European market, and it shows. Where the animators didn’t need to put in the detail, the detail isn’t there. That said, the main story focus is charming and it’s mostly harmless. How do they ruin that here, well let’s take a look.

We open at the Medici Bros. Circus and it’s clear even from the outset that the circus has fallen on hard times. The signs and carriages look battered. The train has a face, I know it’s a nod to the original but I don’t like that it has a face, it’s creepy. This film does remember that human acts also exist in a circus and they perform through a US tour

The train has reached a stop as we see a boy heading toward a girl using her stethoscope on…. Yup, I do believe that’s Timothy T Mouse, one of the main characters from the original, don’t get used to him, he’s not in this film, in fact aside from Dumbo himself and Mrs Jumbo, none of the original animal characters are present in this film.

These kids I just mentioned, whose real names I will not give out for their sake, are easily the worst part of the movie because this is some of the worst child acting I’ve ever seen. Thing is, child actors, particularly those that are new to film, like these two were, need to put their absolute faith in their director and Tim Burton is one of those directors who is more a visionary than a people director. For the sake of not bogging down this review, I will leave it at that and not point out every instance of their acting not working, just know it doesn’t really ever work.

They head to the train station as their father, Holt Farrier, is coming home from the war, now minus an arm. He welcomes his kids, Millie and Joe, and apologises for not being there as their mother tragically died of Spanish flu. Add that to the dead parents list

We’re introduced to the circus ringmaster, Max Medici, played by a guy who’s no stranger to Tim Burton, Danny DeVito, whilst Burton regulars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are absent here, we get Danny DeVito and later Michael Keaton. I say that’s a fair trade, they’re better actors and DeVito may be the one bright spot this film has. But long story short, with the mother dead, Medici didn’t have anyone to ride their horses, and with no-one to ride them, Medici sold them. Instead, Medici assigns him to the elephants. He’s bought in a new and very pregnant elephant, Mrs Jumbo to spice up the show.

So, the deal with the kids is that Joe wants to be in the circus but doesn’t really have an act and Millie is under pressure to try and take one up but doesn’t particularly want to and would rather focus on SCIENCE! Now, I’m sure you’re wondering where this goes, but I’m just gonna spoil it now, it doesn’t. Millie’s science doesn’t really amount to anything and Joe never actually performs, outside of the epilogue. So glad they’re our new main characters for this film.

A bit of comic relief later, a flock of storks passes over the circus, again a reference to the original Storks. The next morning, Joe wakes Holt up as the elephants need them, apparently. We’re introduced to Rufus, I don’t understand why he’s here, at all really. Nothing he does in the movie couldn’t have been accomplished without him and he’s just a jerk for no reason at all.

Turns out Mrs Jumbo gave birth overnight. Hidden beneath straw initially, it soon comes out of its shell, revealing its abnormally large ears. This horrifies Medici for some reason. Oh no, I run a circus, an abnormal animal is totally not something I can market. Seriously, the prejudice in the original is done from the animal’s perspective for this exact reason.

Holt is given the task of somehow hiding the ears from the public. Whilst trying to show him how to blow his ears out of the way to eat, Joe and Millie end up playing a game with him involving a feather, at one point Dumbo sucks it up his nose and begins to fly. Wow, this happened fast, we’re only 20 minutes in, pretty sure this didn’t happen to near the hour mark in the original.

Medici gives Holt a fake arm to use in his act, again, no way you can market a circus performer with one arm? Seriously, you are bad at circus-ing. I suspect the real reason is so they can avoid having to CG out his arm in every shot. He doesn’t believe the kids when they say the elephant can fly. That night, at the circus, the elephants, sans Mrs Jumbo are brought in, with Dumbo wearing a baby hat to hide his ears. Seeing an audience member wearing a hat with a feather sucks it into his knows and reveals she was wearing a wig.

He sucks the whole thing up his nose, I know, just go with it, the movie will be over quicker that way, and sneezes off his hat, revealing his ears to the public. It’s here he gets rechristened as Dumbo by a spiteful member of the audience. An audience member complains that the ears are fake. In a circus? NO! The audience laughs and the elephants begin to riot. Holt tries to his best to clear the situation but the audience have resorted to throwing peanuts at him. Why?

Whatever, making matters worse for reasons of pure spite, Rufus lets Mrs Jumbo into the ring. Holt again manages to calm her down until Rufus decides to begin using the whip, the ongoing rampage results in a support beam being damaged and the whole tent collapsing, the support beams falls right on top of Rufus, who was admiring his handiwork. So yeah, Mrs Jumbo has a ‘body count’… Why is this necessary? Was her beating someone up in defence of Dumbo not enough? Hell, it’s hardly even her fault here, Rufus absorbs all the blame by setting her off, Holt had actually calmed her down, even then the collapse of the roof was an accident, a tragic, I guess, accident.

The result of all this is Mrs Jumbo is locked in a cage away from her son, and the damage to the reputation of the circus is making things more difficult. We see Dumbo visit his mother in the cage and the two spend a touching moment together to a touching song, one of the only ones from the original that even exists in this film, though some of them are omitted for good reason.

Medici sells Mrs Jumbo back to her original owner, and assigns Dumbo to a clown act, hoping to salvage something from all this. Millie pays Dumbo a visit that night, talking about a symbolic key-chain she wears around her neck. Joe comes in with some peanuts, thinking Dumbo might be hungry, Millie has this hilarious response

“He’s sad, you don’t eat when you’re sad” – give it 30, maybe 40 years and you’ll likely have changed your tune on that one. When Dumbo doesn’t respond to them, Joe suggests maybe he wants to be left alone, and another stupid response from Millie

“Nobody wants to be alone” – you know for an aspiring scientist, you’re pretty damn stupid. And no, I’m not considering age as a factor here, Joe is the younger of the two, and not a scientist and he gets it. None the less, they set to leave, but leave behind a feather which Dumbo sucks up and sneezes, proving again that he can fly. Wait, they thought it was the peanuts that made him do it? They were playing with a feather at the time.

Millie proposes that if Dumbo uses his newfound flight in a performance, it might attract a new audience, and earn the circus more money that they can use to buy Mrs Jumbo back. Cut to the new clown act, which involves Dumbo being a firefighter as opposed to the victim this time, not an entirely bad move, there’s enough of a negative stigma around clowns as it is.

The act seems to go well enough, Dumbo sprays but an idiot behind the scenes turns up the gas controls to maximum, causing the platform holding him earlier to collapse, stranding him. Realising he needs a feather to fly, Millie heads up a ladder to deliver one. She delivers the feather and he sucks it up his nose and begins to fly. God this elephant is gonna have a real nasal problem with all the feathers he’s gonna have stuck up there.

So, that’s by and large that’s the story of Dumbo done, a few minor bits missing like Dumbo learning to fly without the feather and getting his mother freed but the major plot beats of the original are done with and we’re only at the 40-minute mark. What we need is an entirely new plot to start up, but first…

“No booze near the baby!”

Guess Dumbo ain’t getting drunk in this version. Just wait till you see how Pink Elephants is recontextualised.

The circus’ newfound success has earned the attention of V A Vandevere (Michael Keaton) who has brought along a french performer named Collette Marchon (Eva Green) you don’t really have to look at him for too long to realise that he’s a villain. Vandevere makes an offer, ownership shares in a particular destination, that would bring the entire troupe in.

And where is this destination? It’s called Dreamland and oh my god it looks… it looks… so very Tim Burton-eseque. There’s an exhibit called Wonders of Science, which has Millie’s attention, she goes there to mope later, that’s about it. They enter their new home, an Indian palace. Of course, Dreamland has horses and Holt will have the opportunity to ride again once he’s finished working with Dumbo.

Collette is tasked with flying Dumbo, ok… What is added by adding a rider to an elephant that can fly even without one, now Collette is drawing attention instead of Dumbo. Maybe I was reading into this wrong but Collette to me felt like she was a user she didn’t like the idea of riding him but knows it could bolster her own image. That’s not what they ended up going with, she’s actually one of the better people, the performance is a little odd.

The initial practice is not very successful. Medici is shown to his very dimly lit office. We get some backstory for Colette, and it’s revealed she’s not really in with Vandevere, she’s just another of his props. Vandevere arrives, wanting a progress report and despite a shaky start, Collette is ably to fly on the back of Dumbo. Remember at this point he’s only a few weeks old.

Toys have sold out for the show, and there’s a huge push on merchandise, hahahahaha, I see what you did there, Burton, this whole thing is a metaphor for Disneyland, isn’t it? Vandevere introduces J Griffin Remmington, a bank investor who’s important to Vandevere’s future or something. The deal about buying back Mrs Jumbo is brought up, but it’s quickly dismissed.

Before we get to Dumbo on stage we see a bunch of bubble blowers, the bubbles become pink elephants and dance around. This is clearly their version of the Pink Elephants scene from the original, but how do bubble blowers do that? What sorcery is this? If we just saw Dumbo following it, it could be dismissed as his psyche but no, Medici comments on them too.

With that over with, we get introduced to Dumbo with this

“Let’s get ready for Dumbo”

They actually thought that line was clever, they do it again later. So the act begins, Dumbo is raised and this time the act is without a safety net, on Vandevere’s orders. Unfortunately, things go awry when she claps and gets chalk dust up his nose, causing him to sneeze and lose the feather. In an exhibit called Nightmare Island, there’s an elephant in horrifying makeup and by the absolute most damming co-incidence, it happens to be Mrs Jumbo.

Dumbo hears his mother’s call and flies straight out of the ring, reuniting with his mother. But this brief reunion comes at a heavy price. J Griffin isn’t willing to invest and many of the audience weren’t happy with such a brief showing from the flying elephant. Aside, Mr Vandevere tells his henchman to remove Mrs Jumbo from the premises, knowing that it’s to an elephant grave.

Millie runs off and Holt searches for her aside from the most obvious place she would possibly go. Collette gives some parenting advice and I so wish I gave a sh*t but I can’t, he finally looks for her in the science exhibit and the two have a heart-to-heart. Things get worse, as Medici tells his troupe Vandevere is to have them all sacked, Holt and family excluded.

Dumbo’s not in a great state, and the troupe and go and see him one last time. The Chauffer comes to tell them, having recently resigned, that Vandervere plans to have Mrs Jumbo killed. With that we’re building up a climax that involves not only reuniting the two elephants but setting them free. I’ll come back to this at the end.

Next show day approaches and it appears the flop of the night before hasn’t really affected anything. The animal culler has arrived to pick up the elephant from Nightmare Island but plans are in motion. The circus troupe begin distracting the guards, or just knocking them out. Thanks to their unique skillsets they successfully infiltrate the building.

Round 2 with “Let’s get ready for Dumbo” as he’s raised in the air. The Circus freaks create a distraction and successfully steal the vehicle housing Mrs Jumbo. Unfortunately, Vandevere soon gets wind of this and wants security increased on both Medici and the kids, Medici isn’t in on the plan, I don’t think, but decides to go along with it, and helps Holt out of a security jam as he climbs up the circus’ exterior. The Henchman is busy chasing the kids.

Dumbo and Collette fly and the kids do a rather poor job at hiding and get caught, fortunately, it seems they distracted him long enough as Holt is cutting through the tent. Collette and Dumbo fly though, and head to the Dreamland control tower. They manage to open the gates so the troupe can escape with Jumbo Jr, then cuts power to the entire facility. The kids manage to escape but are being chased again. OK, Dumbo playing about the power could get people killed, his mother is free, they can escape.

Vandevere, being a complete f*cking moron suddenly beings wildly flicking switches despite being warned what this could do, this causes a fire and I’m not joking when I tell you, the entirety of Dreamland is swept up in this. Holt rescues the horses and goes to ride. Hey, henchman, when the entire facility is burning to the ground, maybe chasing after some kids is no longer your priority? He corners them again but Holt comes to their rescue, sending him away with the horses. Unfortunately, that leaves Holt and the kids trapped in the burning tent.

Dumbo and Jumbo Jr are about to head off by boat, but Dumbo decides to come back and rescue them, using his old firehose trick to get them out of the tent, unfortunately his feather burns in the fire. Vandevere spots him and sends his guards after them so it’s finally time for Dumbo to fly without a feather, Millie throws away her symbolic necklace to prove Dumbo can fly without a feather, but he can’t carry all 3 of them, so Holt elects to stay behind.

Look at this image, $170m budget. The only thing more Burtonesque than Dreamland is Dreamland burning to the ground. Dumbo reunites with Mrs Jumbo and heads off by boat. Medici has a few words with J Griffin to revitalise his own circus.

His circus now carries the mantra that no animals shall be held in captivity, except for the horses Holt rides, guess it sucks to be them. Millie apparently invented cinema as part of her little side-project. OK… Collette is now part of the troupe too, descending from balloons. And as for Dumbo, he and his mother are in the wild. They’re 2 elephants that have no idea how to survive outside of captivity, one of them has a deformity that would make it difficult for him to integrate into a herd. I get the intent of the message but these little details bug the hell out of me.

So that was Dumbo and I’ll give what credit I can. The visuals are pretty decent and I like the performances of some of the adult actors. Unfortunately, where the movie fails is with the children. Not only do they give utterly terrible performances throughout, which robs the emotional value of most of their scenes, there’s also the problem that so much time is dedicated to them, that it isn’t Dumbo’s film anymore. Sure, Timothy T Mouse you could argue does similarly in the originally, but first he’s introduced that bit later and also, he spends most of the runtime with Dumbo, the same cannot be said for the kids.

Their arcs are poorly handled, Joe’s just disappears until the epilogue and whilst Millie is present throughout, aside from referring to fun-and-games as ‘an experiment’ her science brain doesn’t factor into the plot at all.

The entire second plot is just there; it adds basically nothing to the Dumbo story other than needing to hit a 2-hour runtime. It’s not Michael Keaton’s best performance, he’s about as a subtle as a train wreck, I don’t think we’re supposed to guess his evil intent right off the bat but... Either way, he’s one of the lamest Disney villains ever.

It adds a lot of special effects and it makes me wonder if Tim Burton had to convince Disney to up the budget for it, as it turns out it was a poor idea and the film lost money.

Dumbo makes an effort to stretch out a 65 minute story over 2 hours, unfortunately despite basically skimming through the original, cutting out most of its problematic scenes and almost all of its songs, what they add makes the whole thing feels incredibly bloated, not helped by our two lead characters being poorly directed into giving woeful performances.

Rage Rating – 100%