Dumbo

First Hit: Overdone, overreaching, and overproduced leaving little to the imagination — dumb.

Director Tim Burton has a habit of creating worlds and often what we see is his complete vision. He tidies the storyline in such a way that the audience can only watch and not imagine themselves. With fantasy, I think it is important to leave things to the imagination.

With Dumbo he’s created a world where we have to feel sorry for the Medici Circus because it has fallen on hard times. The circus is run by Max Medici (Danny DeVito). The train cars are perfectly faded. There is the strong man who is also the accountant, as well as assorted clowns, snake charmer, and other mixed people. The only animals that are left in this dilapidated circus are dogs with colored fur and elephants.

Two children are running around the circus, Millie and Joe Farrier (Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins respectively). They are being taken care of because their mother has died and their father, Holt (Collin Farrell), had to leave the circus to fight in the war.

Upon the father’s return, he’s missing an arm which adds to the depressing scene. Holt’s act with the circus was riding horses, and when he returned with one arm, he discovered the horses were already sold. He’d hoped he’d do a one arm riding act. Max tells Holt his new job will be to tend the elephants, including the new huge one who is pregnant.

When the elephant gives birth, they find out the baby elephant has enormous, I mean really huge, ears which makes him the laughing stock of the circus audience. Here is where I see a mistake, why is the audience laughing? It is merely a ploy used to make everyone feel even more bad for the Medici Circus clan.

The children are fascinated by the big-eared pachyderm, and through an accident of inhaling a feather, Dumbo sneezes and ends up leaving the ground. Soon the kids discover they can induce Dumbo to fly by flapping his ears and coaxed by a feather.

The circus is about to fold when evil villain V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton) and his girlfriend, Collette Marchant (Eva Green) come to see the flying elephant. Vandevere likes what he sees and buys the Medici Circus, and now everyone works for Vandevere.

Unfortunately, V.A.’s money man J. Griffin Remington (Alan Arkin) puts conditions on V.A. and Dumbo’s performance. This enhances the sadness because Dumbo’s mom is taken away again and now the Medici Circus team wants to retaliate.

You can easily imagine what happens. The whole story is to make everyone feel bad, then let Dumbo save the day along with the kids.

The most positive aspect of this film was the quality of the pictures. Burton does this well, and he’s to be commended for this, but otherwise, the movie is predictable and sadly lacking soul. The computer-generated Dumbo was a work of thoughtful art, but at times, he seemed to human-like.

Farrell was reasonably adequate to the role, but there was nothing for him to stretch into and make it his own. Keaton was OK as the villain, he’s good at it. DeVito was charming as the small circus owner, but I found it hard to believe he owned or ran the circus. The actual running of the circus, like putting up tents, seemed to happen through magic. BTW: The tent poles were longer than a train car, so I kept wondering how did they get them from place to place? Parker was stunning. Her intelligence and maturity were well beyond the child character she played. She embraced this role and was the best thing in the film. Hobbins was equal to the task as well, and it is his and Parker’s performances that kept me engaged. Green was excellent and put something of herself into this role and made it work. Arkin was sardonically perfect for this role as an arrogant banker and money man. Ehren Kruger wrote the screenplay which seemed too buttoned up and left little to the imagination. Burton was himself. His visuals were good and generally dark in character. I also thought that Vandevere’s “Dreamworld” was overdone and took the film too far out of any sense of wanting this film to be real and down to earth.

Overall: Everything was perfect and the way it was to be seen, therefore when I left the theater, nothing came with me.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

First Hit:  Visually interesting and fun, however the storyline was very week.

This film started out lost and ended up lost. Between these points, it seemed to find a path, get some traction, then get lost with extra crap.

Was this a story about Ava (Eva Green) or Senator Roark (Powers Boothe)? Or was this film about Marv (Mickey Rourke) or Nancy (Jessica Alba)? Or was this film about Dwight (Josh Brolin) or Johnny (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)? Although these stories were all inter-relational, it didn’t have a strong enough focus to keep me fully engaged.

Visually though, at times this film was outstanding. The use of black and white graphics, black and white film, and then adding splashes of color; a dress, hair, lipstick, bottle of booze, whatever – it added the kind of interest to keep me watching the film.

Green was pretty good as the femme-fatal however I think the storyline let her down. Rourke was virtually unrecognizable (probably on purpose) but he was good as Marv the brutish indestructible hard charging protector. Boothe was great to see again and his role was perfect Boothe. Alba had a somewhat minor role and I didn’t like it. She was good, but the role was pretty weak and I lacked the ability to care about her character. Gordon-Levitt was the role I enjoyed the most. I would have rather have the film be about his story more than the side story it ended up being. Brolin was in a hero role and he always does this well even in a weakly scripted film like this. Bruce Willis had an OK role as a ghost that assists Alba with her mission. Dennis Haysbert was fantastic as Manute Ava’s bodyguard. His voice and presence in the film was really strong. Frank Miller wrote a disjointed script and I cannot figure out what the point of the film was. That he promoted this film with his name is egocentric driven and disappointing.  Miller and Robert Rodriguez both directed this film and if the script had been better the film might have been better.

Overall:  Although the visualizations were fun, this film is forgettable.

Dark Shadows

First Hit:  This film was a study in what Tim Burton likes to create, however it wasn’t very entertaining to the audience.

When there are very few laughs in a film that is labeled a comedy there is a problem.

This was a somewhat convoluted story where a witch (how did she become one?) is more powerful than a vampire but not more powerful than a ghost. What was this film about?

Was it a film about long lost love, trying to tie together across 200 years? Or was it was about fishing, fish canning and how one family wanted to control it in a small town in Maine? Or was it was about great sex between a witch and a mortal but it wasn't enough to create a lasting relationship?

Heck, I really don't know but it might have been about Tim Burton plying his trade of creating fun off kilter spooky characters which have little basis in reality with no plot. Barnabas Collins (played by Johnny Depp) is the soul who doesn’t want to love a witch so he is turned into a vampire and is dug up from his grave 200 years later. He returns to his family home now run by Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (played by Michelle Pfeiffer).

She is the matriarch of the now crumbling fishing and canning Collins Empire. Dr. Julia Hoffman (played by Helena Bonham Carter) comes to try and heal the vampire Barnabas. But how and why they found this person is completely left off the script. Which indicated that this was a totally unneeded and unwarranted part, but a way to get Carter, Burton’s wife, some work.

Roger Collins (Jonny Lee Miller) was another useless part as Elizabeth’s son. Eva Green played the witch Angelique Bouchard, who was one of two major protagonists in this story.

The third wheel was Victoria Winters/Josette DePres (played by Bella Heathcote) who was loved by and was in love with Barnabas but was killed centuries ago by Witch Angelique. Again, like Barnabas, she comes back to fulfill her love/dream.

This whole film is convoluted and didn’t make a good story worth telling. There was little intrigue but it did have Burton’s trademark ghoulishness.

Depp was OK as his character but the film was so poor it felt like he was re-treading past Burton work. Pfeiffer was lost and very miscast in this film and she simply doesn’t do ghoul well. She’s better off in a dynamic part. Bonham Carter as she has done lately, try to be over the top (see her stuff in Harry Potter films) as oppose to acting. The part was unneeded for this story and therefore her value was minimal. Miller was a wasted character and I had no idea why it was part of the film. Green was the most interesting of characters in the film. Her gazes and temperament were excellent for this part. Heathcote, was beautiful but in a role which was not fully utilized. There could have been more depth to this part. Jackie Earle Haley has a small part in this film as the Collins mansion handy man and unfortunately there was little Haley could do with this part. Seth Grahame-Smith and John August wrote a wasteful script which had a very flimsy storyline and dialogue was of little use. Burton does great visuals (bright red car, lipstick and dress for Angelique), but overall this story lacked something worth watching. It is a far cry from Edward Scissorhands and, my favorite, Beetlejuice.

Overall:  Don’t waste your time. This film isn’t funny nor is it an interesting story.