Shared Darkness

A smash hit upon its commercial release in October of 1941, Dumbo
remained Walt Disney’s stated favorite film of all his animated brood,
up until his death. A surprise? Perhaps. But looking back on the
streamlined movie and its simple messages about friendship, courage and
the persistence of effort, it’s easy to see why.

Clocking in at only 65 minutes, Dumbo
might seem an elongated short by some of today’s standards. But
director Ben Sharpsteen and the rest of the filmmakers do a remarkable
job of getting to the hearts of their characters in stirring,
minimalist strokes, and the story itself elicits panged sympathy from
anyone (which is to say everyone) who ever faced taunting as an
adolescent. The story, of course, centers on the titular baby elephant,
the floppy-eared son of single mom circus elephant Mrs. Jumbo. Dumbo is
an enthusiastic tyke, but he’s ridiculed by both humans and his own
brethren alike for his physical dissimilarities. With the support of
his unlikely best friend, however, Timothy Q. Mouse, Dumbo soon learns
that his ears make him unique and special, allowing him to soar to fame
as the world’s only flying elephant.

Sweet, completely straightforward and unpretentious, Dumbo bears traces of German expressionism in its use of shadow and pose, including one shot that serves as direct homage to Nosferatu,
hardly a typical Disney influence. The movie’s hallucinatory pink
elephants sequence serves as a counterbalance to the otherwise bright
washes of color that dominate its backgrounds. Dumbo, meanwhile,
remains a very sympathetic character, his silent suffering a marked
juxtaposition to the excitable derision heaped upon him. It’s no wonder
the movie connects on an almost subliminal emotional level.

This so-called “Big Top Edition” of the movie, housed in a regular
Amray case in a raised, foil-embossed cardboard slipcase, is presented
in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1, with Dolby digital 5.1 surround
sound and French and Spanish language tracks as well. The picture looks
great, and animation historian John Canemaker provides a feature-length
audio commentary that charts the film from its earliest days of
storyboarding in January of 1940 and shines a spotlight on Joe Grant,
Milt Neal, Les Clark and other bit player animators who helped craft
some of Disney’s most memorable work. Canemaker overreaches a bit in
his snippy analysis of the movie’s slapstick clown characters in its
putative climax, but for every occasional eye-rolling faux-profundity
there are six or seven interesting insights and contextual details,
including the assertion that at least one of Dumbo’s bits of dialogue (“Lots of people with big ears are famous”) is a direct reference to Clark Gable.

The bulk of the rest of the movie’s extras, including an art
gallery, a clutch of sing-along songs, interactive children’s games and
two animated shorts (the eight-and-a-half-minute “Elmer Elephant” and
the nine-minute “Flying Mouse”), are imported from the film’s previous,
60th anniversary DVD release, which trims some content here. No matter,
though. Dumbo soars as a film, and this release does too. A (Movie) B+ (Disc)

As a straight-to-video sequel to 2002’s Like Mike — perhaps the best ever (which is to say only) film spawned by a lyric in a Gatorade commercial — Like Mike 2
boldly extends on the premise of its franchise, following its
diminutive protagonist through several championship basketball seasons
and into a foray into minor league baseball. It climaxes with him
becoming a general manager and director of basketball operations for an
NBA franchise, drafting a high school stiff named Kwame Brown and
berating him in practice for his continued lack of effort and
commitment to betterment.

Umm, actually, that’s not true. As director David
Nelson cops to in an interview at disc’s end, Like Mike 2 is “the same story, new family.” Ergo, whereas Like Mike
found (then Lil’) Bow Wow’s 14-year-old orphan Calvin Cambridge trying
on a faded pair of lightning-struck sneakers hanging from a power-line
and becoming an NBA superstar, this recalibrated follow-up stars Jascha
Washington as another kid whose skill set is enhanced by a pair of
athletic shoes inscribed with the initials “MJ.” The story centers on
Jerome Jenkins, a “tweenage” street-baller who gets no respect on the
local court because he’s too young, too slow and, worst of all, too
short. So, magic shoes… do your stuff!

Apart from the presence of the diminishingly cute Jonathan Lipnicki (Jerry Maguire), the original Like Mike
at least had a roster of reliably kooky adult supporting players
(Crispin Glover! Eugene Levy! Anne Meara! Robert Forster!) with which
to somewhat distract us. Like Mike 2 gives us Brett Kelly (the fat little kid from Bad Santa)
and… maverick Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban in a cameo. Now, don’t
get me wrong — Cuban is a great interview, probably the best
pound-for-pound soundbite in the NBA. But he’s handcuffed by
irrelevancy here, and the earnest presence of veteran actors like
Michael Beach, as Jerome’s father, and Blu Mankuma, as Coach Archie,
doesn’t help inject much in the way of surprise or originality into the
day.

Is Like Mike 2: Streetball worse than, say, Rebound, Martin Lawrence’s dreadful
coach-seeks-redemption-by-drilling-a-bunch-of-middle-schoolers comedy?
No. Rather, it’s a moralizing piece of family fare, competently shot
and enthusiastically acted. Elementary school hoops junkies will spark
to the fantastical hops with which it imbues Jerome, but slightly older
kids may be a bit put off by the movie’s pandering.

DVD special features for the film, which is presented on a flip disc
in both anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen and 1.33:1 full screen, include a
half dozen deleted scenes and three short behind-the-scenes
featurettes. In one, a six-minute making-of bit replete with EPK-style
interviews and informal footage from the set, young Washington and one
of his costars, Micah Stephen Williams, praise director Nelson as being
“more black than they are.” (Nelson is white.) That may be the most
stirring or provocative thing on the disc. C (Movie) C+ (Disc)