DUMBO (O-RVZ MOVIE REVIEW)

DIRECTOR

Tim Burton

WRITERS

Ehren Kruger (Screenplay)

Helen Aberson (Novel)

Harold Pearl (Novel)

CAST MEMBERS

Colin Farrell

Michael Keaton

Danny DeVito

Eva Green

Alan Arkin

GENRE

Adventure, Family, Fantasy

MOVIE PLOT (from IMDB)

A young elephant, whose oversized ears enable him to fly, helps save a struggling circus, but when the circus plans a new venture, Dumbo and his friends discover dark secrets beneath its shiny veneer.

REVIEW

The live adaptation treatment of the classic Disney animated movie Dumbo. I haven't seen the original movie of it so I can't really compare the two but all I could remember from Dumbo is that he's an elephant who has this big ears and can fly. I'm not familiar with the overall story of it and so I guess it will be easy for me to judge whether I liked the storyline of the live adaptation of it or not. There's something seems to be lacking from the movie after watching it in terms of its direction, story, characters and the overall tone.

Tim Burton, who directed this adaptation, is one of the unique directors because of his directing style and I've been a fan of most of his works. His signature style of having this dark, Gothic tone really made his movie so different from the rest and though I've been loving most of his works, I don't think that Dumbo would have been the appropriate material of having his kind of style. Let me go through first for the things that I liked about the movie. First off, the colorful world. I guess if you're familiar with Burton's movies, you know that his vision are really quite impressive and I like the way he puts things in the movie set such as the landscape of it and the colors. The production set was really visually striking and it really has this fantasy vibe to it. Second, is how they designed Dumbo. It would be really weird seeing a baby elephant with such huge ears and I think they really did a good job creating a design that doesn't feel too cartoony and still looks kind-off real when put besides to the human characters. His looks were really real for a CGI-made character and he has this innocent look that you just can't resist to hug the poor little guy. The issue I have of this film is how the story goes through. The plot is forgettable and pacing of it felt dragging. The tone lacks that magical feeling of what we've known from those other Disney movies and the characters were really just boring. I didn't see any outstanding characters coming out of them and I just find their character growth really dull and basic. I didn't feel anything special about its story and I almost fall asleep during some of the integral part of the movie. The

OVERALL

Dumbo excels in terms of its visual aesthetics but suffers to the meat of its story. It also suffers from dull character moments and lacking with its growth. There's no sense of magic whatsoever and I didn't really appreciate the pacing of the story as it was really clumsy and messy at times. It's one of the weakest movies out there from the Disney live-adaptation treatment and it is such a waste for a very talented director to tackle this kind of a project.