'Dumbo' is too gosh darn cute, and that's (somehow) a complaint

Dumbo's problem isn't really that the animal is too cute. But that's part of it.

For starters, it undermines the initial premise of the movie, which is that Dumbo would be ostracized by humans as a hideous freak instead of worshipped as the most adorable creature ever to exist. And at a circus, no less -- a place people go specifically to see things that are weird in a fun way.

The larger issue, though, is that Dumbo's adorableness floods the movie with sentiment that feels largely unearned.

It is impossible not to feel moved when Dumbo whimpers for his mother or snuggles up to his favorite humans. In the context of a movie that does little else to elicit genuine emotional response, however, it's also difficult not to notice how calculated these moments feel.

And although your mileage may vary, I found that, as a pet owner, I found scenes of Dumbo in distress to go beyond affecting, into the downright unpleasant. It's freaking hard to watch two hours of an animal making enormous tear-filled eyes at you, even when you know he's made of pixels.

To be fair, Dumbo does try to be more than just a cute animal gif generator. The elephant is actually a supporting player in a jumble of interrelated storylines about a dad (Colin Farrell) disappointing his children (Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins); a small business struggling in an industry dominated by a big business; and whatever we were supposed to take away from Eva Green's role as a charismatic trapeze artist.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

But the other plots never quite take off. The family stuff is seriously hampered by the fact that none of them seem like real people -- not even the father, despite Farrell's literal sad clown routine -- and the business stuff by the head-scratching implausibility of everyone's plans.

Dumbo works better as a collection of odd little moments. Emphasis on odd, because like so many Tim Burton movies, this film is at its best when it's weirdest.

Michael Keaton is apparently having the time of his life the extravagantly villainous Vandervere, and if he seems like he's come in from a completely different movie, it does, at least, seem like a movie I'd really like to watch. Danny DeVito gets some of the biggest laugh lines as the in-over-his-head ringleader Medici, and he's perfectly complemented by the deadpan of his assistant/accountant/strongman Rongo (Deobia Oparei).

There are other weird touches, too, like a diorama inside Dreamland's World of Science imagining the "bright future" as a cross-dressing couple wielding a proto-phone and a proto-hairdryer in a Jetsons-esque kitchen. In 1919. It's jarring and nonsensical and has nothing to do with the rest of the movie, and I want to know everything about this alternate 1980s now.

As a whole, though, Dumbo ends up feeling more like a sideshow than a main attraction. Medici, a circus ringleader who can't figure out how to make money off of an adorable baby animal with larger-than-average ears, would probably love that it's so standard and basic.

For the rest of us, though, Dumbo probably would have been better off letting its freak flag fly.