TIM TORCHES DISNEY - LITERALLY.....IN "DUMBO"

Dumbo (2019)     There's so much weird crap going on in this movie, I may forget to mention it all.......

                 To the Disney corporate lizards, this must have felt like a no-brainer decision......

                 With the sweet little 1941 'Dumbo' on their hit-list for CGI strip mining, why not turn the assassination over to cinema's premier fantasist, Tim Burton.........

                  ("Yeah!  Burton'll make those popcorn gobblers and their rugrats cry twice as hard as those 1941 rubes!")

                    Wrong.  The whole weepy-weepy part of 'Dumbo' - the little elephant cruelly separated from his mom - was the one part of the story that interested Burton the least. Oh it's in there, alright.
But Tim's got way bigger fish to fry.......

                     Digitally drawn by the usual vast armies of CGI elves, Burton presents a grungy, grey post World War I panorama of  tacky, gaudy show-biz........with its vaguely cruel, creepy circus and massive art-deco theme park, it's designed to overwhelm and wow you..........

                     There's so much dazzling production design to take in, this movie's too busy to stop and make you shed a tear or two for little Dumbo.....

                      The poor little pachyderm ends up whisked away to that grandly conceived theme park, dubbed 'Dreamland' ......CGI-rendered as a mad mixture of TomorrowLand, a 1960's 'World Of The Future' Expo and a county State Fair....

                     Presiding over this unholy Amusement mecca:   the film's official big-business villain, V.A. Vandevere.......unevenly and uncomfortably played by Michael Keaton.  V.A.'s nothing but a venal cartoon, a Greed Goblin........whom Tim Burton uses as a metaphor for Disney Corporate......

                      How so?   Just like the Disney honchos, V.A., a heartless moneygrubber, wants nothing more than to exploit Dumbo for big bucks......similar to the way Disney spends all its effort and treasure to plunder the company's original classic catalog, converting the films  into bloated, top heavy computer animated behemoths........dead and cold at their very core.

                      Here comes the only fun part........

                      Talk about biting the hand that fed him millions to make the movie.........Burton turns
V.A.Vandavere's 'Dreamland' into an apocalyptic bonfire.........Vandavere, the would-be Disney, watches his glorious would-be Disneyland consumed with flames to equal the burning of Atlanta in "Gone With The Wind".......or more to the point,  the forest in "Bambi".

                       Good news indeed, since that would prevent any sequels where Vandavere tries exhibiting CGI replicas of Bambi, Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog or Charlie The Lonesome Couger......

                      As I said at the start.......weird as hell. And I wonder if the suited-up Disney Lizards bargained for how this one came out.........Burton squandering their money on his dark, moody landscapes in which Dumbo's a relatively minor component......and gleefully torching a theme park meant to imitate you-know-where..........

                       Don't hold your breath waiting for any Disney World rides based on this one......
Zero stars (0).........