You may believe an elephant can fly but you won’t believe in much else with this tepid remake of Dumbo.

There may be a pointed, topical message or two in Tim Burton’s live-action remake of the Disney classic Dumbo, not to mention a subversive jab at the Mouse House itself, but you really have to squint to find them. The latest in Disney’s continuing attempt to plunder its brand of just about every animated classic in the company’s legendary library (Dumbo will be followed later this year by Aladdin and The Lion King), it’s almost certainly the least of those efforts to date, not to mention another in a long line of misfires for Burton himself.

The problem with Dumbo, as opposed to The Jungle Book or Beauty and the Beast (what I think are two of the better live-action reduxes), is that the original cartoon,...