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Author
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Topic: Dumbo (2019)
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 04-07-2019 09:12 PM
I think it was shot for Imax ... some scenes have peoples' heads cut off, or otherwise seem to be taller than the frame is.
I enjoyed it less than I thought I would. This is easily the worst of the Disney "remakes" so far. I can't compare it to Tim Burton's previous Disney films since I haven't seen them, but I would take the newer "Jungle Book," "Cinderella," or "Beauty and the Beast" (in that order) before I'd want to watch this again.
The acting was almost uniformly terrible, especially the kids, and ESPECIALLY the girl. Good grief, she showed almost no emotion at all. Very disappointing since Disney child actors usually do great jobs. The kids in "Mary Poppins Returns" were Oscar winners compared to the kids in this one. The only person I enjoyed watching in this show was Danny DeVito, who is always dependable it seems.
The story was OK, although it was inconsistent. The thing that bothered me the most is, they went from Dumbo being basically "untrainable" within a couple of days, to suddenly having the brains to know the kids were in trouble (and to fly right through the wall of a burning tent to find them). He also knew to fly to a control tower and crank various levers to turn off all the power to the amusement park grounds, without even being told or guided to do any of it! If this was a cartoon, you can be more forgiving of extra-smart animals, but in a live-action film you expect things to be a tad more believable. At least I do, anyway. The Dumbo flight scenes were more believable than some of the plot contortions.
The one thing that really took me out of the story was Michael Buffer yelling "Let's get ready for Dumbo-o-o-o-o!" a few times, in the exact same tones as his famous "Let's get ready to rumble!" wrestling announcements. Come on, Disney. Have some respect for the time period you're portraying. That guy wouldn't even have been born yet in the Dumbo time period.
It was OK, had a fairly uplifting yet sad-ish ending, but I felt a little let down by it. Here's hoping "The Lion King" remake is better. Since it's directed by John "Jungle Book" Favreau, I have high hopes for that one.
Two out of five stars.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 04-23-2019 09:19 PM
Right now, Disney is still raking in the money, with all the stuff they've absorbed over the last 10 or so years, they have enough stuff going to keep them floating for a while.
But it seems like Disney is following an old, repetitive pattern. If they continue this path of low-level creative output, by just reheating old stories and pushing one sequel/prequel/whatnot after the other, then things will eventually start to turn against them...
I still remember when Michael Eisner was the new bigshot CEO. Although most people now have little good to say about his reign at Disney, he was actually the one who started the Disney Renaissance, after they hit a pretty hard low before that.
Under his reign, many of the now classic animation blockbusters were released. But near the end of his reign, this period of renaissance was over and Disney was merely pushing one direct-to-video release after the other, while their global theme park business was also in hot water and the only saving grace seemed to be Pixar.
Everybody was relieved when stuff turned around in 2005, when Disney got their current leadership and when they finally decided to buy Pixar. But now, after more than a decade, we seem to be getting back to the late Eisner period, where many of their original output is a mere reheating of existing franchises and reboots of old classics, nobody really has been waiting for...
While Disney has generally been great for the box office, the cracks start to show through. The way they mistreated Star Wars, by overloading the public for example.
And now, we've got a whole bunch of those CGI remakes lined up like this Dumbo movie, the Lion King and for whatever reason... Aladdin, featuring a blue Will Smith...
Also, the upcoming Pixar release, will also be just another sequel of a franchise that really had their most graceful goodbye ever with their last installment. But the Mouse is greedy this year, that's why there needs to be a Toy Story 4...
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