You'll believe a CG elephant can fly!

I’m generally against live action remakes of animated movies, but on the surface Dumbo seemed like one of the better choices Disney have made in their recent frenzy of reimaginings. The original film has a ridiculously slight plot, offensively caricatured crows and aside from a few vivid sequences is generally one of the more forgettable classic Disney films. Tim Burton was the obvious choice to helm this circus-themed movie and for the most part it delivers what you expect, sometimes a little less (but rarely more). The story has been expanded by focusing more on the human characters, as we follow WWI survivor Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell, trying his best to give depth to a character who is pretty much defined by having an odd name, dead wife and a war injury) and his children. The kids are fine, but are mostly there just to tell us what Dumbo is feeling since none of the animals talk. Having much more fun is Danny DeVito, playing his third circus ringmaster character for the director. Dumbo himself is something of an enigma, but the computer animation is nicely done.
The first half is pretty much a loose remake of the first movie, but then Michael Keaton’s Walt Disney villain comes in halfway through and sends the plot off on a whole new tangent. While it’s fun to see Burton and his screenwriter poke fun at Disney with Keaton’s Magical Kingdom type theme park and urge to buy up smaller companies and exploit them, there’s no real sense of peril in watching Dumbo fall and then fly away at the last moment over and over.
The ending is suitably crowdpleasing and any animal-lover will leave the movie happy. The visuals are delightful (loved the new pink elephants on parade sequence), Danny Elfman’s score is lovely, and the costumes are a wonder. All of this is par for the course on a Burton movie, though. Did this need to be made? Not really. But it’s a pleasant and enjoyable two hours at the movies in these dark times, so I’ll take it.