Dumbo

With the help of Holt’s kids, Dumbo finds his place in the circus, attracting the greedy attention of Michael Keaton’s oily entrepreneur, V. A. Vandevere, who lures the circus family over to his Dreamland theme-park, (which, when the letter “D” drops off the sign, might be director Tim Burton’s cheeky aside to the film’s producers). As you’d expect, the art direction is first-rate, and the Dumbo look so good that when Keaton’s villainous Vandevere first sees Dumbo fly he’s rapt, telling Holt, “You’ve made me a child again.”

Whilst a creaky, repetitive script and flat characterisations fail to inspire much awe, there’s plenty of family fun to be had along the way, featuring respectful nods to the original (including the pink elephant parade, this time without alcohol involved), sad scenes, spectacle, slapstick, and laughs, including a scene in which an incredulous Keaton asks DeVito: “Is that a monkey in your drawer?” De Vito is delightful, Keaton has a blast as the bad guy, Eva Green does what she can in a severely underwritten role, and Alan Arkin appears briefly as a banker. The film is let down by the flat performances of the youngsters playing Holt’s children, and some painfully dire actors in small roles, particularly one Dreamland controller in the last act, who warns Keaton against flipping switches with about as much conviction as a biologist explaining the aerodynamic properties of pachyderms.Hide