Review of Dumbo (2019) by Mattyice — 29 Mar 2019

I was almost certain that Dumbo would buck the trend of "copy-paste" Disney remakes with new characters and an engaging different story, considering Dumbo's original run time is a mere one hour.

Unfortunately, I was sorely let down, as this ends up being a poor effort by Disney. Main positives were the adorable elephant himself and a few circus sequences. Also it's hard to resist the charm of Danny DeVito and Michael Keaton in their roles.

However, the film falters in most other regards, with a story that puts more emphasis on the lifeless, boring human characters instead of Dumbo, changing a lot of the main significance/themes from the original movie.

Even with a longer running time, it still feels like the story is rushing out of its originally okay beginning to a lackluster second half. Because of this, character development feels rushed as well.

Overall, while I do still appreciate Disney trying something different than just doing complete remakes of their old properties, this is not a good one.