![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Then Michael Keaton’s brash entrepreneur VA Vandevere, ‘the Columbus of Coney Island’, pitches up, offering to buy the circus, and the movie blazes into life. Even a cast of oddball circus regulars – strongman, mermaid, snake charmer etc – fails to fire his imagination. In truth, Burton, that great lover of scrappy outsiders, struggles to mine much beyond ponderous sincerity from these sluggish early scenes. Money is short and his last hope is the magical baby elephant tended to by damaged Great War veteran Holt Farrier (an oddly forgettable Colin Farrell) and his two willing kids, Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins).īoth are grieving for their mum, providing an obvious connection with Dumbo when the baby elephant’s own mother is sold. Danny DeVito is pompous impresario Max Medici, whose travelling circus is going a bit ‘Grapes of Wrath’ in the dust bowls of the Midwest. The fact that you know the story of ‘Dumbo’ inside out presents a challenge that ‘Transformers’ screenwriter Ehren Kruger tries to overcome by introducing swathes of new human characters. Then again, maybe that’s the point: he is the least aerodynamic character to fly in a movie since Brian Blessed in ‘Flash Gordon’. It’s only when flying that he seems a bit clunky. All giant expressive eyes and beach-towel ears, he’s a computer-generated creation that exudes picture-book warmth. Let’s tackle the baby elephant in the room first: how does Disney’s new Dumbo look in a live-action movie? Happily, the teeny pachyderm is a suitably heart-melting presence in Tim Burton’s relatively orthodox redo of the 1941 animation classic. ![]()
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