Dumbo

Tim Burton seems to be a case of a director who keeps on working even when any sense of inspiration, originality or creativity has long since dried up. He’s always been a director who leaned towards production design rather than performances, but once upon a time there used to be passion in the production design combined with a space loose enough to allow performers to seize their moments for inspired performances, emotionality and strangeness. Now we just get a dull trudge through things that should feel magical but instead just feel rote.

“Dumbo” brings the cartoon into live action by, largely, foregrounding a bunch of human characters, few of whom really register as much more than ciphers. Eva Green continues her run of being much better than the movie’s she’s in, Michael Keaton’s performance never finds a level or a base so is prone to some overacting, Danny DeVito provides his standard work, Colin Farrell is his standard blockbuster movie self, which is to say competent but nothing exceptional, and the kids largely show that Burton hasn’t improved as a director of kids since “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”. Most damningly, it’s not until close to the end that we get any sense of magic or wonder when Dumbo is flying, which you’d think would be fundamental to getting the film to work. For goodness sakes, this is a film with a circus and a theme park. You’d think this should be joyous and strange and wonderful. But there’s only maybe three or four moments when any sense of wonder or interest ever comes through, mostly in the second half of the film. And that’s nowhere near enough.