Dumbo DVD/Blu-Ray/Digital Review
Disney has been on a roll with its plan to release live action versions of many of its classic animated movies, with huge hits for Beauty and the Beast, The Jungle Book and Aladdin. Now its the turn of Dumbo and Tim Burton takes the helm of this live action version starring Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito and Eva Green.
This new live action version doesn’t just retell the story scene by scene, its taken the main core story, added new elements and brought it up to date. There are many noticeable differences in the story, though there are many little nods to them, which one of the featurettes in the extras goes into a little more detail explaining. Since there are some scenes from a movie from the 40’s that just wouldn’t work today, especially the Pink Elephants scene. I was impressed with how this movie included it, but didn’t need to get Dumbo drunk to see it, which wouldn’t have gone down well with modern audiences.
Unfortunately, the new live action version of Dumbo never hit the same level at the box office as other releases like Aladdin or The Jungle Book. And I’m really hoping that with its home video release and upcoming Disney+ release, that this movie will find an audience. Because I was someone who skipped seeing it at the cinema and its a shame since its a lovely entertaining movie, it has an fantastic cast and the movie looks stunning.
Especially Dumbo himself, they’ve done an incredible job in making him so cute and adorable. And that’s what makes the movie work, when someone is mean to him, you feel it.
While the movie has a darker undertone, which I would have expected from a Tim Burton movie. He usually manages to find the way to make a mainstream Disney movie, but it isn’t super glossy or sugary sweet, until the very end.
Dumbo has an impressive line up of actors, while Michael Keaton stood out as playing the scheming villain and Danny DeVito just stole over scene he was in, as the Ring Master Max Medici. But the film seemed a little stuffed with a few too many characters, just to fill out the story. Which is one of the problems with the movie, since the movie is almost double the length of the original animated movie.
This version comes with lots of bonus features, many of which are just your typical fare, some outtakes and some very generic featurettes about how great everyone was working on the movie etc. Nothing I’d want to watch more than once, but its nice to have it on there. I personally found the making of video a little more interesting, since we got to see the scope of the impressive huge sets that were made for the movie. Which is why the movie has such a unique look, because it mixes the real world with the computer graphics.
Did this movie need to be made? No! Would I prefer Disney made more original movies than just remaking classics? Yes! However, when watching Dumbo, I was completely entertained and thought it was charming. It will never match the original but it never was going to be able to live up to that.
With an all-star line up, amazing visuals and a cute baby elephant, this is a perfect sit at home and watch type of movie, where you can just grab the snacks, snuggle in and just enjoy a charming family movie.
- Disney provided a copy of the Blu-Ray for this review