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Dumbo review – this flying elephant fails to take off

Tim Burton’s overcomplicated remake of a beloved classic lacks emotional punch

It says something about the extravagant visual impact of Dumbo that the flying baby elephant is routinely upstaged by his backdrop. Tim Burton’s live-action remake of the Disney classic fills in the spaces of the deliberately understated original watercolour animation with a noisy fanfare of pizzazz and spectacle. There’s plenty of typically Burtonesque camerawork – the lens that peers upwards, with a mixture of fear and wonder, before hurtling skywards like a firework. And there’s a lot to take in, even before the action shifts from the itinerant circus troupe (which served as the setting for the original story) to the steampunk, Coney Island-style amusement park, which hosts an explosive, all-new climax.

Even the skies are magnificent, appropriately so, given Dumbo’s skill set. The circus train chugs across country under candyfloss clouds and synthetic sunsets that have the palette of a children’s party cupcake buffet.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2TJYVMv
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