DUMBO: 4K Blu-ray (Walt Disney Co. 2019) Walt Disney Home Video
Whenever I
embark on any review of a retro-fitted remake of a classic, although especially
one from the Walt Disney Co., I am acutely aware of L.P. Hartley’s quote, “The
past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Were that
someone would remind the powers that be at the ‘mouse house’ these days, as just
in time to tamper with your fond memories of Walt Disney’s originally
delightful animated classic, comes Tim Burton’s naively re-conceived Dumbo
(2019) – a movie so purposely corrupted by its proto-sobering, anti-capitalist/pro-animal
rights modus operandi, it completely falls apart as a big-hearted family
entertainment. And this, despite an ambling performance from Colin Farrell as
Kentuckian, Holt Farrier, a World War I amputee/ex-equestrian performer and widowed
father of two precocious kiddies: Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins).
Undeniably an artist in his own right, Burton’s ‘warped’ perspective on
humanity at large and his glib undercurrent of uber-cynicism generally
translates into badinage that is as unsettling, if playful as it proves revealing.
But on this occasion, the real star of the picture is neither Burton’s pitch,
nor the floppy-eared and doe-eyed/CGI-generated pachyderm who manages to soar
over the director’s heavy-handed message; also, the character’s rank adversity,
though regrettably, never to land squarely in our hearts.
The first half
of Dumbo is permeated by Burton’s envisaged menagerie, hewed from liberal screenwriter, Ehren Kruger’s deep thought…or rather, the still
waters that do not run nearly as deep as Kruger thinks. The tale, as it is now
told, affords us an eccentric and disenchanted backdrop, rather slavishly
devoted to the trials and tribulations behind this circus spectacular, from whence
– sporadically – is excavated the beating heart of humanity. It’s all good, to a point, or rather – until the
moment when Dumbo is separated from his ‘mad elephant’ mother. But then, Burton
gets too involved in his skewed ‘teachable moments’ – excoriating the picture’s
villain, V. A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton) as a surrogate for – dare we suggest,
Walt Disney!!! – reconstituted as an unfathomably pitiless entrepreneur, determined
to exploit Dumbo for pure profit at his Bohemian amusement park, Dreamland (the
Disneyland of its day). One really cannot overlook – or, for that matter, forgive
– Burton his trespass against Uncle Walt; his blatant, if utterly misguided, analogy
between Walt and Vandevere, the latter perceived as a self-interested and
devouring capitalist monster. Burton is not even candid, as to suggest they
might be two-sides of a dissimilarly colored Janus-face coin, but rather grey
variants from the same mint, working to permeate and manipulate the public
consciousness…and animal rights activists be damned!
Of late, there
have been far too many exposés about Walt Disney – mostly written by those who
never met or even knew the man, but vehemently insist the benevolent gent we
have come to associate with warm and fuzzy ‘feel good’ family-entertainment, was,
an oft tyrannical figure; Walt’s outward charm, masking a streak of antisemitism
and racist prejudices that allowed him to pursue his more insidious take-over
of our collective childhood. It’s all rubbish, folks. Sorry, but Walt Disney was,
and remains a man of vision who, through his passion for bringing families
together, made the latter part of the 20th century the ‘age of
Disney’ – not to warp or even anesthetize our cultural mindset, but make the
world a better place for all who came to bask in his particular world-view of hemispheres
united by love, rather than the world we presently find ourselves in, governed
and divided by skepticism and fear. So, Burton’s unromantic view of the showman
– as the devil incarnate in Dumbo - is about as far off the mark as
rumors, innuendo and demonizing attacks on all men of vision can get. And, under Keaton’s command, we can almost
empathize with this crocodile-smiling connoisseur who declares, “You’ve
turned me into a child again.” Yeah…a child with a blow torch! Except that
almost immediately thereafter, Burton begins his own hatchet job on the impresario
ilk, abetted by Keaton, who strips off his immaculately styled locks, revealing
a toupee, and, sheds the thin veneer of high-borne inflections, exposing a real
low-brow bastard lurking underneath. Burton’s
favor here is clearly with wicked genius, or rather, wounding his audience by puncturing,
what he alone perceives to be, the balloons of sham and hypocrisy to which all
men of vision - untrustworthy and diabolically perverse potentates - aspire. It
is an ugly treatise, and one from which this Dumbo never entirely
recovers.
I am so old I
can remember a time when the Walt Disney Co. strove for authenticity and
originality above all else. ‘Sequel’ was not in the studio’s lexicon then.
Sadly, this time has passed. In its wake, and the exodus of Michael Eisner, the
new executive brain trust is merely content to remake every past animated hit
into ‘less-than’ live action derivatives, expanding run times, but precious
little else. Burton and Kruger do not re-imagine Dumbo as much as they
re-use the template Walt created for his 1941 masterpiece, and then, irksomely dilute
its focus from the mammals on four legs to the others on two. Colin Farrell who
has made something of a minor detour in his once-promising career aspirations, appearing
as the eponymous title character in John Lee Hancock’s Saving Mr. Banks
(2013) is again underused in Dumbo and largely forgettable as Holt
Farrier. It's 1919 and Holt ought to be at the top of his game as one of the
headliners in the Medici Bros. travelling circus. Bad timing and fate conspire against
him, however, and Holt, having lost an arm in 'the great war' now returns to
the circus, only to realize there is no place for him among its menagerie of
glittery stars. As far as circus owner, Max Medici (Danny DeVito) is concerned,
Holt can tend the elephants. Even more tragic, in his absence, Holt's wife has
died from influenza. Needless to say, his children are grateful to have him
back. Under Holt's care, one of the circus' star elephants, Mrs. Jumbo gives
birth to a shy babe with unusually oversized and floppy ears. Seeing the
potential to exploit this oddity as a figure of fun, Dumbo is dressed in clown’s
garb. The crowds jeer and Mrs. Jumbo defends her offspring against their
callous catcalling. Her protective measure frightens the humans and Medici
elects to have her removed from his show as a 'mad elephant'. Mother and child parted;
the forlorn Dumbo attracts the attentions of Holt's children when he illustrates
an uncanny facility to fly. Unintentionally, this attracts the unwanted
attentions of impresario, V.A. Vandevere who forges an all too brief, if
lucrative alliance to have Medici's freak appear at his famed, Dreamland.
As in the
original movie, Dumbo is mute, expressing panged separation, through sensitive eyes,
brought dramatically into close-up for pivotal sequences. As before, when Dumbo
scales the ladder during an act involving a makeshift building on fire, we
catch the fear triggered in those big brown orbs, and witness tears of
tenderness bursting forth as mother and son join trunks through the jail grate
of Mrs. Jumbo's cell; a circus performer warbling 'Baby Mine'; that
iconic Ned Washington/Frank Churchill ballad created for the original movie. There
have been other movies under the big top since Walt’s Dumbo (1941) hit
theaters; too many, in fact, to warrant a near verbatim remake of Dumbo now
when an already definitive animated version exists. Burton and his production designer,
Rick Heinrichs, get the period right, and also poke a stick at the finer
nuances borrowed from the '41 masterpiece. So, yes - we get a Casey Jr., this
time, weather-beaten, but with its boxcars still teeming in live animals. The
real problem here is the human element. Too much is made of Holt's introduction,
though not nearly enough thereafter to warrant this character's inclusion. He
quickly becomes a rather pointless appendage to the plot - a genuine shame, since
Colin Farrell has proven he can rise above such drivel and deliver the goods
when called upon.
But I really do
have to give Tim Burton's props for his restraint herein - resisting his usual
urge to give us another Edward Scissorhands-styled escapist Nightmare
Before Christmas dark fantasy with all those quirky touches for which he is
well-known. And truth to tell - we do get flashes to suggest Burton might again
go full-tilt nutty with demented inspiration, particularly during sequences
taking place inside Dreamland. For here is one of those hauntingly abnormal fantasy/purgatory
landscapes (think 1940’s Pinocchio and Pleasure Island) for which Burton’s
pop-up picture book of eccentricities breeds an unusually stifling waxworks –
more David Lynch than Tim Burton. Burton's stamp of approval is on every frame here,
intriguingly to contrast Vandevere's electric-powered, gleaming and impersonal,
if awe-inspiring gigantism against Medici's more intimate, gas-lit enterprise
of the sawdust and spangles tradition. Michael Keaton makes for a formidable
baddie and that's good, even if his obsessive nature and wicked dealings
increasingly become the central focus of this story. Danny DeVito is as
compelling, albeit, at the other end of the spectrum, eager to capitalize on
Dumbo's obvious gifts as the ebullient 3-ring cajoler of human and animal freaks.
It must also be
pointed out that the CGI herein is exquisite; Dumbo - sailing high overhead
with feather firmly clutched in his trunk, the breeze from his aerodynamic ears
knocking hats off the stunned and overjoyed patrons. Everything about these
sequences, dizzyingly framed by cinematographer, Ben Davis, hints at a better
picture certain to unfurl from the tent polls of the big top that, alas, never
materializes. The CGI-laden set pieces are carried off with maximum aplomb, but
book-ended by some truly disposable dialogue-driven vignettes devoted to the befuddled
human counterparts, who bring the spectacle to a screeching halt. The picture’s
focus is split right down the middle, between the animal and human worlds and never
the twain does actually meet for a thoroughly integrated affair. Perhaps worst
of all, Burton has decided to exploit the occasion to mark a PC commentary on
animal cruelty and the circus. Note to contemporary film makers: it is not your
job to indoctrinate, inoculate or otherwise insert 'a message' into period
pieces. Decades ago, screenwriter extraordinaire, Paddy Chayefsky pointed out
that the goal of film-making is to plainly entertain. In Dumbo, as is rather
badly done in more than a handful of today’s movies commenting on times that
differ - socially/politically - from our own, it most certainly does make
a difference - even to the point where it weakens the overall arc and undermines
the entertainment value of the piece.
Early
development for this adaptation of Dumbo began in 2014, when Kruger presented
his script ideas to producer, Derek Frey. A year later, Burton was confirmed as the
picture’s director and the Walt Disney Co. began to look ahead toward a 2019
release date. The departure from the
original story retains the life-affirming message about believing in one’s
self, despite seemingly insurmountable adversities. However, the focus on human
characters and their idiosyncratic plights increasingly distracts from the
title character’s triumph over the human world. To be fair, Kruger’s screenplay
holds tight to the emotional simplicity that was the essential spark and core
of the original animated movie. As was his predecessor, this Dumbo is an
outcast who nevertheless manages to turn a perceived infirmity into a benefit. Our story is set in 1919, and opens after the ‘great
war’ with the return of Holt Farrier to the Medici Brothers’ Circus. Cash-strapped,
as Holt’s wife and co-performer, Annie, has died from the Spanish flu, Medici
reassigns Holt, now an amputee, as the elephant caretaker. Mrs. Jumbo, a star attraction, gives birth.
Alas, her darling calf is a freak as far as Medici is concerned and he orders
Holt to conceal its over-sized ears before marking baby Jumbo’s public debut.
Regrettably, the ears become exposed during the performance and the crowd mocks
the babe as ‘Dumbo’, pelting him with peanuts. Horrified, Mrs. Jumbo rampages
into the ring, causing extensive damage and accidentally killing an abusive
handler. To avoid a scandal, Medici sells Mrs. Jumbo to another show. Dumbo is
crestfallen, but comforted by Holt's compassionate children, Joe and Milly who
inadvertently discover he is able to flap his ears. The children also realize
that a good luck feather is key to Dumbo's willingness to fly.
The circus moves
on. Dumbo is presented as a firefighting clown, instructed to spray water from
his trunk on a staged blaze. Alas, the fire spreads and Dumbo gets trapped on a
high platform. Milly gives him a feather to clutch in his trunk and this allows
Dumbo to fly over the fire and extinguish it. The crowd is brought to their
feet, cheering loudly at this unusual feat. Word of mouth spreads, and, entrepreneur,
V. A. Vandevere seeks out the act, astonished by the baby elephant. As Medici is
unlikely to part with such an extraordinary animal, Vandevere proposes a
collaborative partnership – the entire circus troupe invited to set up at his
New York theme park, Dreamland. Regrettably, Medici does not study his contract
too closely before signing on the dotted line.
For his
Dreamland debut, Vandevere has concocted a high-flying act to feature Dumbo
with his own French trapeze artist, Colette Marchant (Eva Green). She is
good-natured and willing to work with animals. But the performance goes badly when
Dumbo nearly plummeting off the high platform. Elsewhere in Dreamland, Mrs.
Jumbo instinctively senses that her offspring is near and calls out to him.
Now, Dumbo flies from the circus ring to be reunited with his mother, much to
the audience’s disappointment. Determined to isolate Dumbo from his mother,
Vandevere orders Mrs. Jumbo terminated. He also callously fires Medici and has
virtually all of his circus performers – except Dumbo – evicted from Dreamland.
Learning of Vandevere plot, Holt and the rest of the performers rally to save
both Mrs. Jumbo and Dumbo. As the circus performers conspire to free Mrs. Jumbo
from her restraints, Holt and Colette coax Dumbo to fly away. Vandevere tries
to foil their escape, but inadvertently starts an electrical fire that destroys
his beloved Dreamland. Holt and his children are narrowly saved from the blaze
by Dumbo. Now, he and Colette reunite Dumbo with his mother, taking the pair to
the harbor. There, they board a ship bound for India – their native land. Afterwards,
Medici re-envisions his circus with a new act built around Colette. There are
rumblings that Vandevere has been arrested and is about to be tried for gross
misconduct. In the penultimate moments, Millie serves as host at a new science
lecture exhibit, championing the circus’ new policy of not using wild animals
in captivity for entertainment purposes. Dumbo and his mother are introduced to
the wilds in India, where an eager herd of elephants, as amazed by the flying
feats of their latest edition, pay their tributes to Dumbo as he sails
overhead.
Dumbo is not a bad
movie, per say – just misguidedly offbeat as it fails to capture the spark of
elusive magic that made the animated version such an enduring classic. Initially,
the studio hoped to cast Will Smith as Holt Farrier. Smith had other ideas,
passing on the ‘opportunity’, depending on the consulted source, for various
reasons. In his wake, the studio briefly considered Bill Hader, Chris Pine and
Casey Affleck as his replacement before settling on Colin Farrell, an ardent
admirer of Burton’s work. Unlike Disney’s most recent spate of live-action updates,
meant to capitalize on their formidable back catalog of animated treasures, Dumbo
was shot (mostly) on full-scale sets built at England’s Pinewood Studios and Cardington
Airfield, the CGI concentrated almost exclusively on creating a credible title
character and completed on time and under budget by Moving Picture Company,
Framestore and Rise FX. The obvious parallels between Vandevere’s wholesale acquisition
of the Medici circus and Disney Inc. annexing 2oth Century-Fox in this same
year, cutting 3,000 employees from its Fox 2000 branch, reeks of a sort of
politicized smite that Burton may have had with the company cutting his checks.
It’s too translucent to overlook or dismiss outright.
Without question,
the parallels between Dreamland and Disneyland are uncanny. And
it’s when Burton rails against ‘the establishment (i.e. the Walt Disney Co. in
totem) that, even more ironically, this version of Dumbo excels. It is
really too bad the first hour or so of this Dumbo is a syrupy snore, overwrought
and much too obsessed with the plight of its human counterparts; the one bright
spot, Danny DeVito’s interaction with a CGI-monkey. Colin Farrell’s subtly nuanced
performance gets developed at the outset, but is then repeatedly sidelined before
being entirely cast aside by the time Dumbo enters its third-act. So,
the point to giving Farrell such a rich backstory of heartache and struggle would
be…? The chief difficulty in transitioning
Dumbo from cartoon to live-action is thus; that, in animation the
emphasis - ergo our empathy - was telescopically focused on the animal world
as an offshoot of our own; the animators, grafting human attributes onto these
noble creatures. That works in a cartoon. It cannot be done half as
successfully in live-action. We lose Timothy the mouse, and the crows, and,
virtually all the other non-human counterparts that were so much a
part of our story in 1941. In their absence we get real human players, and, live-action where the suspension of our disbelief must
come from Dumbo’s ability to communicate ‘human emotions’ through expressive pantomime.
However, toggling between the human world and its animal counterpart in Burton’s
remake only makes the parallel between man and beast seem even more artificial,
clumsy and forced. In the end, this Dumbo
lumbers along on the strength of our collective sentiment for Walt’s classic
story, left mostly unfulfilled by the final fade out.
Dumbo was reportedly
photographed at 3.4K and finished in 2K. So, predictably, this 4K release
improves both color and clarity over the standard Blu-ray. The advances are subtle
at best. Sharpness and contrast
predictably improve and fine details are resolved with marked precision,
extolling the rugged and earthy textures, as well as the depth of the color
palette. Dumbo also receives a Dolby Atmos uptick from the DTS 7.1
Blu-ray. But, like the Blu-ray, this 4K audio
re-mix is strangely wanting. Danny
Elfman’s score sounds wonderful. However, SFX lack that essential sonic oomph!
Extras are confined to Disney Inc.’s usual marketing fluff and are exclusive to
the standard Blu-ray also included in this 4K release. So, we get a brief ‘making
of’ featurette, some deleted scenes, a gag reel, trailer and music video.
Forgettable filler. Bottom line: Dumbo in 4K looks appealing. But Burton’s
movie lacks heart – proof positive that Walt knew his craft better than most,
and by far, much better than those who continue to raid his cave of
wonders today for their own aggrandizement and profits. So, who’s the Vandevere now?!?
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
2.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS
3
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