This Dumbo is certainly a visual spectacle, and it could've gone awry if not for the one key thing required to make this movie work: Dumbo is really, really cute.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 21, 2019

I believed an elephant could fly, this Disney remake a beguiling fantasy that does its animated predecessor proud.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 3, 2019

Expect to be impressed by the cinematography (Ben Davis), costumes (Colleen Atwood), production design (Rick Heinrichs), music (Danny Elfman) and the animation that created the adorable Dumbo with those large watery eyes that sparkle in the wild.

| Apr 3, 2019

That this same blockbuster should turn out to be utterly soulless and the cinematic equivalent of a tacky Vandevere production is a gorgeously satisfying irony, and certainly the most interesting element of an otherwise vapid, uninspired remake.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 2, 2019

While Dumbo has the premise of a Burton movie - an outsider cast adrift in a carnivalesque world - it hardly feels like one, with the director's signature visual style subsumed into a world of sunset hues and glassy CG veneers.

| Apr 2, 2019

The animation of old feels so much more real than the live-action remake.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 1, 2019

The refurbished story, both numbing in its predictability and painstakingly woke, is the clearest indicator that this reboot need not exist.

| Mar 31, 2019

Apart from Colin Farrell's widowed amputee stunt rider and Danny DeVito's deliciously unscrupulous ringmaster, the characters, Dumbo included, are rather underwritten. But more of a problem is an emotional missing link.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 31, 2019

It didn't touch me emotionally... it's taken the fairytale element out of it.

| Mar 29, 2019

There's enough anthropomorphism here to keep the audience on side, which is important for the younger viewers who will be seeing the movie in the looming school holidays. The costumes and set design are also first rate.

| Mar 29, 2019

I was expecting a surplus of cute close-ups, but Burton does surprisingly little to win us over. He's never been big on treacle, but a bit more warmth in this chilly movie, which barely follows the outline of the 1941 original, would have gone a long way.

| Original Score: C | Mar 29, 2019

Although Dumbo redeems some of the now-problematic elements of the 1941 film-including a realization that animals shouldn't be abused-it is also curiously wooden.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 29, 2019

Lost in all of this is Dumbo himself, a CGI creation with big ocean blue eyes and those lovably floppy ears... But the spirit and heart of the original "Dumbo" is still locked away in the Disney vault.

| Original Score: C- | Mar 29, 2019

I was psyched for the reteaming of Keaton and Burton, who together cooked up "Beetlejuice" and two of the better Batman films, but the chemistry, sad to say, produces no magical brew.

| Mar 29, 2019

There's a lot going on in the movie, none of it entirely coherent...

| Mar 29, 2019

That the plot involves having DeVito's modest family-run circus being swallowed up by a mogul with his own theme park is almost too obvious a metaphor for the back half of Burton's 35-year career.

| Mar 28, 2019

It's astounding that Tim Burton and his colleagues could have created such a downer from a long-beloved source of delight.

| Mar 28, 2019

Dumbo is no barn-burner, largely forgettable in a way its predecessor wasn't.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 28, 2019

The film's a joy to behold, if not to ponder. Burton and his crew find magic in their paintbox that's missing in the story.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Mar 28, 2019

It has some undeniably magical moments, but how many of these there are depends on the eyes - and age - of the beholder.

| Mar 28, 2019