Plot-wise, Dumbo does not offer anything new, and the plot itself only picks up in the latter half of the movie. Green, in her third Burton film, is actually French, so you can excuse her French accent, even though it feels tacked-on to emphasize her character’s exoticness.Īnother plot-related tidbit that feels forced is Milly’s obsession with everything scientific, which in this climate of women’s movements feels like the filmmakers are gunning for the checklist of politically correct sentiments. Traipsing the trapeze: Eva Green, a regular collaborator with Tim Burton, portrays French trapeze artist Colette. Like any other movie out there, Dumbo also has an obligatory semi-romantic subplot represented by Colette Marchant (Eva Green), a French trapeze artist working under Vandevere who is assigned to work with Dumbo, and by extension Holt. It is a simplistic message that these feel-good movies churn out for a dash of happy endings, even with tightening animal welfare laws and the closure of the Ringling Bros. Like Free Willy, Dumbo also features children as companions to the wild animals, in this case Holt’s children Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins). Vandevere (Michael Keaton), an entrepreneur seeking to exploit the elephant’s ability for his own gain through his amusement park Dreamland.Īs you can surmise from the setting alone, Dumbo is the kind of Free Willy-esque movie where the message boils down to “caged animals bad, freed animals good”. And that’s before going into the ethics of keeping animals for amusement.ĭumbo’s flight eventually catches the attention of V.A. Perhaps it is a dose of realism in a movie involving flying elephants, or perhaps it is director Tim Burton’s flair for twisting the innocence, but Dumbo seems depressing from the get-go, with even a (covered) corpse shown on screen. True companions: The anthropomorphic animals of the cartoon are swapped for a human cast, with Colin Farrell (left) in the lead role. With his horses sold and no show to go back to, Holt finds himself working as an elephant handler. However, despite Dumbo being the star of the show in-and-out of the universe, the movie follows several human characters that act as Dumbo’s handlers and companions.įormer cowboy circus star Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) returns from World War I minus an arm to find that his wife had died in the 1918 influenza pandemic. Rather than having Dumbo named from the beginning, Jumbo Junior earned his name in a circus-related mishap that conveniently defaced the placard with his name on it to spell Dumbo. As befitting a remake, Dumbo expands on the eponymous elephant’s naming.
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