Dumbo Cert: PG, 1hr 52mins
Anyone revisiting the original 1941 version of Dumbo will be unavoidably struck by two things: first, the enduring vibrancy of Walt Disney’s Technicolor animation and, second, the film’s astonishing political incorrectness by today’s standards.
Among its many perceived sins, it places the adult bullying of infants and human cruelty to animals at the very heart of its story, unashamedly perpetuates racial stereotypes and casually endorses drunkenness in minors, albeit minors of the physically challenged, pachyderm variety.
Oh, and you’ll probably notice a third thing too: said pachyderm doesn’t actually fly until about four minutes before the end.
Right from the opening frames of the live-action remake, it’s clear that things are going to be different this time around with Dumbo taking to the air barely 15 minutes in
So, right from the opening frames of the live-action remake, it’s clear that things are going to be different this time around.
Yes, there are still storks flying over the winter quarters of the Medici Bros’ circus but they no longer deliver baby elephants in their beaks. Mrs Jumbo will have to give birth by more conventional means.
As for the muscular circus labourers, they’re certainly not all black now and won’t be launching into a demeaning chorus of ‘We’re happy-hearted roustabouts’ any time soon.
Times are tough at the travelling circus for Holt Farrier (Collin Farrell) and his two children, Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe despite the efforts of its owner, Max Medici (Danny DeVito)
With Dumbo taking to the air barely 15 minutes in, director Tim Burton could not be providing a clearer signal of ‘all change’.
As part of that change, the initially rather thin story has been expanded and developed, largely, but not entirely, for the good. Now set in 1919, it sees Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) returning to the circus from the Great War, minus an arm and still mourning his wife, who apparently succumbed to the 1918 pandemic of Spanish flu.
No wonder his two children, Milly and Joe, are so pleased to see him.
Michael Keaton seems to have stepped out of a different, more Burtonesque film altogether but Eva Green is spot-on as the French trapeze artist Colette
But times are tough for a travelling circus, despite the best noisy efforts of its indefatigable owner, Max Medici, played with evident relish and big-top showmanship by Danny DeVito.
Holt’s show horses have been sold and the only job Max can offer him is looking after the elephants, pregnant Mrs Jumbo and all. Holt isn’t keen but his children, particularly the solemn, serious and scientifically inclined Milly, are.
So when Mrs J gives birth to a cute, blue-eyed baby with the most enormous ears, it’s the children who become his chief protectors and, in the face of incontrovertible early evidence that Jumbo Jr can fly, his chief trainers too.
When Mrs Jumbo gives birth to a cute, blue-eyed baby with the most enormous ears, it’s the children (Finley Hobbins and Nico Parker) who become his chief protectors
I loved the first hour, which is nothing like as dark as most Burton offerings, which often include DeVito (remember his nightmarish Penguin in Batman Returns?). Here he’s more of the lovable, monkey-tormenting rogue, who may noisily demand his money back when Dumbo’s physical imperfections become apparent but still, one suspects, has a heart of gold.
The same, however, cannot be said of that other veteran of Batman Returns, Michael Keaton, when he arrives as the sinister, blond-wigged amusement park owner, V A Vandevere.
He seems to have stepped out of a different, more Burtonesque film altogether, and there’s no doubt Dumbo – as both film and indeed, by now, aerobatic elephant – feels unbalanced as the film builds to rather too big a climax at Vandevere’s Dreamland amusement park.
The cruelty of the story still jars – ‘Dumbo, Dumbo, fake, fake, fake,’ chant the crowd as his big- top debut goes horribly wrong and the barred wagon with the warning sign ‘Mad Elephant’ – one of the iconic images of the original – makes an equally unsettling reappearance.
But other echoes of the first film genuinely charm. Look out for regular appearances of the ‘magic feather’ supposedly responsible for Dumbo’s flying abilities, and for a very clever, alcohol-free reworking of the extraordinary, psychedelic ‘pink elephant’ sequence.
With Eva Green spot-on as the French trapeze artist Colette (goodie, baddie, who knows?) and some wonderfully envisioned big-top sequences, this is very much a Dumbo for our times.
You may not quite come out believing an elephant can fly… but it will be close.
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK
The Highwaymen (15)
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Half a century ago, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty gave us the definitive version of the story of Bonnie & Clyde. Now it’s the turn of Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson to tell the corresponding story of Frank Hamer and Maney Gault, the former Texas Rangers who tracked down the Lone Star-born gangsters and brought their infamous crime spree to a bullet-riddled end.
52 years after Bonnie & Clyde, it’s the turn of Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson (above) to tell the corresponding story of the men who tracked down the infamous gangsters
Produced by Netflix and directed by John Lee Hancock, the film’s main strength is the laid-back chemistry between the two leads as the ageing gumshoes who are out of condition and can’t shoot straight.
But despite a cinema release, it is slightly lacking in cinematic scale.
The Vanishing (15)
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In recent years we’ve grown accustomed to Gerard Butler in mega-budget thrillers. So it’s good to see him returning to his Scottish roots with this tense, menacing but modestly scaled drama based on what is known as the Flannan Isles mystery, which in 1900 saw three lighthouse keepers disappear.
With Butler and Peter Mullan taking the two leading roles, and newcomer Connor Swindells playing the younger third man, the acting is as good as the claustrophobic atmosphere is tense.
But the story that Joe Bone and Celyn Jones have dreamt up to explain the men’s disappear-ance feels derivative, and the level of violence favoured by director Kristoffer Nyholm is unpleasant.
Out Of Blue (15)
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Remember Destroyer, with Nicole Kidman as a troubled LAPD detective on the trail of a murderer with possible links to her past? Well, Carol Morley’s new film is a lot like that only, for 80 stylish minutes or more, much, much better, with Patricia Clarkson on low-key but impressive form as the maverick New Orleans homicide detective and Morley layering on the mood, music and off-kilter style.
Patricia Clarkson (above) is on low-key but impressive form as the maverick New Orleans homicide detective in Carol Morley’s new film Out Of Blue
And then suddenly, the story of who killed astrophysicist Jennifer Rockwell (Mamie Gummer) goes narratively haywire, turning a strikingly unusual film into something overworked and very odd indeed.
At Eternity’s Gate (12A)
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Apart from producing dozens of artistic masterpieces, Vincent van Gogh is best known for going mad and cutting off his ear. Julian Schnabel’s biopic, with its wobbly camerawork, discordant soundtrack and 63-year-old Willem Dafoe playing the 37-year-old artist, helps us realise just how Van Gogh felt.