A Too Honest Review Of Disney’s New Live-Action “Dumbo” Movie
*Warning Spoilers*
Disney is continuing to take advantage of the reboot trend by turning their classic animated films into live-action versions. It seems to be most appealing for those who grew up watching these beloved movies on VHS, myself included. This new version of Dumbo was directed by Tim Burton and starred Danny DeVito, Michael Keaton, Colin Farrell, Eva Green and a few others. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really have any expectations for this movie. I knew the plot and I knew that I would probably feel sad when Dumbo’s mother got taken away. But as it turned out, there was no way I could have prepared myself for what ended up happening.
I cried from the moment Dumbo was born all the way to the car ride home from the theater. That CGI baby elephant is cute as hell. He has big beautiful blue eyes paired with eyelashes that are both darker and fuller than mine. Everyone making fun of his oversized ears left me feeling homicidal. I honestly don’t understand what the problem was, he is a BABY and he will grow into his ears when he becomes an adult elephant. Jesus Christ. Anyway, the scene where they took away his mother hit me hard. And I know you’re probably thinking, “her mother probably left when she was young that’s why she cried so much.” Nope! My mom was sitting next to me, in fact that bitch was barely tearing up. I felt my tears fall down my face and tried my best to silence my sobs. It was a quick scene, but I never recovered. The floodgates had been opened.
There are various scenes in the movie where Dumbo is in danger and I lose my shit. But let’s fast-forward to the scene where Dumbo has his debut performance at Dreamland. Before he goes on he is standing on the side watching the performers before him. They are doing some crazy bubble act paired with music. What happens next is what I now officially call the most important scene in film history. We cut back and forth between the bubble performance and Dumbo’s face as he gets increasingly more interested in the bubbles. Something happened to me in this moment. As we pan back to Dumbo’s reaction he is bobbing his head and trunk along to the music. It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire goddamn life. The pure joy on Dumbo’s face put me over the edge. I lost control of my body and emotions. I was crying so hard I had to step out of the theater.
I was having an existential crisis. I was openly sobbing and hyperventilating outside of theater two. Mothers gathered their young children and walked the other direction so that I didn’t scare them. A couple walked out of the movie “Us” and looked at me in disgust as if I was their tethered twin. Honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Jordan Peele actually wrote Dumbo because this movies fucks with you. I couldn’t figure out why I was crying so hard. Was is because Dumbo’s reaction to bubbles was so cute and innocent? Was it because all my friends from high school and college have real jobs and are basically engaged and I’m over here doing improv? Was it because I don’t think I’ll ever be as happy as Dumbo was in that moment? Was it because the young girl in the movie loved science? Was it because I’m a sensitive little bitch? Probably! Suddenly I started laughing uncontrollably. I had just been crying about a CGI elephant in a movie. What the hell. And then I realized how sad that was and the sobbing continued.
After about ten minutes I was able to compose myself and return to the theater. I continued to cry but at some point it may have transitioned into happy tears. It’s impossible to know for sure. After the movie I went into the restroom and looked in the mirror. You know how when people cry their mascara runs down their face? Well, for some reason all my mascara tears had made their way towards my mouth and I looked like I had eaten a tube of mascara. Anyway, Disney, you did me dirty. I’d give this movie an 8/10 even though it caused me to have an emotional breakdown so severe an innocent theater patron asked me if someone in my family had just died.
