Sunday, October 14, 2012

Frankenweenie (Film) - Review


For better or for worse, Tim Burton makes films like no one else can. His live action films are a bit less distinctive, but Burton's stop-motion is so very Burton. His latest film is Frankenweenie, a remake of an old short film he created when he was much younger. It's creative, funny and often quite charming, but it also completely lacks a sorely needed thematic backbone and strong identity.

Frankenweenie is a parody of the classic Frankenstein tale. Victor, a talented film-maker, can't connect to other people, and instead focuses on his work and his lovable dog Sparky. When Sparky dies, he's devastated. After being inspired by a lecture in science class, Victor decides to bring Sparky back to life. He of course is successful, and we have our premise.

Victor is a typical kind of character, but a relatable and touching one, partly due to Charlie Tahan's voice work clinching his quiet yet smart and determined personality. There's the ubiquitous awkward, fat character and the nerdy, Asian character, which both entertained me, but I have some reservations about how strongly the stereotypes were played up in the latter kid, considering the film's child-friendly atmosphere otherwise. Some of the characters here are actually quite original, though, like the creepy wide-eyed girl whose equally creepy cat lays omens in the form of poop, and the hilariously weird kid that is meant to harken back to the assistant of Doctor Frankenstein in the old tale.


Later in the movie, the other kids discover Victor's revived dog and use his methods to spruce up their previously comedically bad science fair projects. When they use the lightening to shock life into their test subjects, their results are not so cute and cuddly. Demented sea monkeys wreak havoc, a giant turtle rampages around like Godzilla, etc. This quickens the pace of the film and makes it more exciting, and shows more than any other part just how awesome this film's visuals and overall sense of style is.

The animation is so very good, and the creative design of the sets and creatures and characters is also so very good. The cute things look cute, the monsters look monstrous, and the quirky things look quirky. Also, it's not a frightening movie, but the tone is very much like that of a horror film, especially in the latter half. That latter half is filled with cool creatures messing stuff up and looking sweet while they're doing it.



There's a big problem, though: The film has a bit of an identity crisis. For one thing, Victor is pinned as a film-maker in the first half of the movie, but by the end it appears as though Frankenweenie's film-makers changed their minds and wanted him to be a scientist. But the bigger issue is the film's overarching theme, or perhaps more accurately, its lack thereof. The sole purpose of Victor's parents seems to be, other than establishing that he has parents, to build up to a hard yet important lesson that children not only especially need to learn, but are able to handle.

And then the movie just completely drops the ball on that at the end.

There are a few possibilities. The first is that the creators of this film don't think that children are smart enough, nor willing to, learn something meaningful. The second is that they placed seeds for a compelling lesson that they didn't develop at the end out of laziness. And the third is that they attempted to have some other kind of lesson; other than the one that they actually began to build up to. No matter which is the case, what they created is thematically empty. Not every movie needs a theme but it feels criminally missing in this one, as it presents a serious problem that children often don't know how to handle, and purposely ignores it.

It's hard to give a clear verdict on Frankenweenie. It's an incredibly creative film, with fun characters and gorgeous visuals. It's funny and often quite clever. It has fun with itself. But its ending, which solidifies its lack of a clear identity and thematic backbone in a film that sourly needs such a thing, is so massively disappointing that the rest of the movie feels intrinsically worse by the time the credits roll. Frankenweenie is a pretty fun ride but an amateur mistake by a talented director stops it from being the masterpiece it could have so easily been.

1 comment:

  1. Probably not the best movie to take your kiddies out to go and see, but still a fun-loving, heartfelt flick that’s a nice return to pace for Burton. I just hope he can keep it going. Nice review Matt.

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