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Tim Burton’s Creatively Bankrupt ‘DUMBO’ Doesn’t Take Flight

As told by Tim Burton, Disney’s Dumbo is a glossy kiddo-approved spectacle piece sure to entertain the youngins in the audience while offering no reason for its existence beyond the plain-faced cry for box office chowder. Adapting the 1941 story of a circus elephant whose oversized ears enables him to fly, Burton and screenwriter Ehren Kruger (Ghost in the Shell) co-opt the basic premise of the original tale and fluff out the barebones story with a cast of uninteresting human characters and a corporate subplot that offers a kids a warning about bad employers and carefully reading contracts.  Read More

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Out in Theaters: ‘MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN’

There’s this odd duality that percolates throughout Tim Burton’s latest filmic venture Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. At almost any given time, it is either extremely lively or extremely dull. Look no further than its charisma-hole of a lead, Asa Butterfield (Hugo) for the dullness. He slums through scenes; a wet blanket personified. Flat as a rock, he delivers each goopy line with monotonous apathy, casting a sleeping spell on the enchantment Burton tries (and is sometimes able) to conjure. Moving as if yanked by an invisible chain, he is a blight on an otherwise solidly entertaining feature courtesy of a director who himself has recently unchained himself from his greatest liability (*cough, Johnny Depp, cough*.) Read More