Yesterday was the premiere of another Disney movie which was quite famous many years ago. It was a live version of the animated movie and it was intriguing how we would be able to see the flying elephant. Good thing the film was showing in the theater near our home so it was convenient for me and my wife to see it. Well now we should go on with the movie.
Brief Story Line
Set in the year 1919, Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell - Total Recall, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them etc) came back from war to Medici circus where he previously worked with ringmaster Max Medici (Danny DeVito - Taxi TV series, Twins etc). Holt's very young children Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins) were trying their best to cope with the life at circus. As Holt was no longer able to perform his usual act, he was given new task of taking care the elephants, including Jumbo who was pregnant.
When Jumbo delivered the baby, it was a one of a kind elephant with very large ears that made him difficult to even walk. But Milly and Joe who loved the baby elephant took care of him and found out his ability to fly using the large ears. And later on, he was able to perform in the circus by flying and getting the nickname of Dumbo. Due to Dumbo's fame, Medici circus was getting attention from a major amusement park owner Vandevere (Michael Keaton - Spider-man: Homecoming, Birdman etc) who wanted to acquire Dumbo services. With his best performer the Trapeze artist Colette (Eva Green - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Penny Dreadful TV series etc), they tried to convince Medici to join them.
So what would happen to Dumbo and the Medici circus? Find them all in this quite amazing family drama.
End of Brief Story Line
Honestly I never saw the original Dumbo animated movie which was released back in the year 1941. My goodness that was so long ago. Anyway, I only knew about its fame as flying elephant, so if the name Dumbo came up, I could picture the young elephant with his big ears that could make him fly. But that's just about it. Nothing about the movie or any other characters that I was familiar. So when I saw this movie, I was not able to make any comparison whether it was a better one or exactly similar remake in live version (like in the case of Beauty and the Beast).
Now my experience about this film was that it had an amazing special effects. The making of Dumbo was so realistic and lifelike that I felt Dumbo was real. Even my wife kept on saying she wanted to have Dumbo. LOL. I think the huge budget put into this film was really worth it as we were in awe of everything about Dumbo appearance. Weird thing though, even if the story was supposedly about Dumbo, I still thought that we did not get enough Dumbo screen time. There were quite a lot of back story about the people surrounding him which might be the reason for my feeling. Perhaps if the children's relationship with Dumbo were explored more, the emotional moment could be felt a lot better. That's just how I felt though, as my wife was still touched by few scenes in the movie.
I mentioned above that there were some stories about the people surrounding Dumbo, which was nice. I loved the relationship between Colin Farrel's character Colt and his children (which were portrayed quite well by the young Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins in their movie debut). I also liked Danny DeVito's character in here as he gave some amusing moments in the film. Michael Keaton was OK and quite convincing as the money hungry entrepreneur. But I felt Eva Green's character development was not too realistic (too fast to my opinion). Oh there was also another well known name Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine, Argo etc) as the banker, but his presence was too brief and did not leave too much impression.
The drama portion in here was adequate. Movie's duration was less than 2 hours, which was probably why I felt it was a bit too short and seemingly not enough time for the emotional moments. I thought that Tim Burton (specialized in making fantasy movies like Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Alice in Wonderland and many more) wanted to emphasize on Dumbo's ability plus the grand amusement park which seemed to be given quite a major portion but resulted to the bit lacking of dramatic moments and the Circus part too little. The sound effects were wonderful and I noticed during the credit scenes, it was having a Dolby Atmos effect (which I did not experience as our studio did not support it, but still manage to make us amazed). The background music was nice enough. Btw, there was no mid or post end credit scene in the movie.
Overall, I thought that this movie was quite entertaining. It was amazing in term of making Dumbo so real but personally I felt the dramatic and emotional moments which were usually pretty abundant in Disney movie were too little. But as a fantasy movie, this one was wonderful, with outstanding special & sound effects. I could also picture this to be a grand experience watching in IMAX. So if you want to see Tim Burton in his specialty movie, then this one would be a great option.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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