Frankenweenie is one of the best film concepts that just never panned out. Frankenweenie looks great on paper: it's a Tim Burton homage to monster movies and black and white and features a nice story about a boy bringing his dog back to life. But it's just so dull. There is no real emotion. Tim Burton put his imagination into the film but didn't put his storytelling skills into it. There is no character development. There are tons of characters that Burton added just to occupy time and add nothing to the story. There is a bunch of nonsense in the middle of the film that advances the story no further. It was a film that I was not entertained by and while I enjoyed some of the slight winks that the film has, I was still bored and uninterested.
Frankenweenie is about a boy named Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan) who likes to make movies. He makes super 8 movies in his backyard starring his dog Sparky. His dad (Martin Short) wants him to play sports. When he plays baseball, he hits a home run and his dog chases it and gets run over by a car. It gets real depressing real fast. Then Victor decides that he will use the knowledge his science teacher Mr. Rsykruski (Martin Landau) gave him and bring his dog back to life. He does and then a bunch of things happen.
My biggest problem with Frankenweenie is the middle section and lack of interesting characters. There are about twenty characters in Frankenweenie and I couldn't relate to a single one of them. They are just there to advance the story, which for an hour of the movie doesn't advance. There is a thirty minute time period where there is nothing but a bunch of different kids running around doing science fair stuff while the dog is just roaming around town. They try to do multiple experiments but they don't work. There are no characters you care about or even like (I guess Victor is slightly enjoyable but still). The movie just doesn't work. It's not that funny either. The ending, which everybody else seemed to love, with reborn pets destroying stuff didn't matter to me because I felt uninterested in the action because I had no attachment to the characters.
While this is pretty much a bashing of Frankenweenie, I still enjoyed a couple of things about it. The design is beautiful. There is so much to like about the black and white aesthetic that Burton uses and a lot of the winks he puts in the film are good as well (such as lightning flashing every two minutes). But it just doesn't matter. It's a perfect example of style over substance.
Burton fans will probably love it. I'm not a Burton fan so I can't really say. I was excited that Burton would offer a good old school film and I was excited about the design. Some would argue that he did. I would say that he didn't do a good enough job. Overall, I was very unsatisfied in the film.
THE FINAL GRADE: D+ (4.5/10)
Frankenweenie is about a boy named Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan) who likes to make movies. He makes super 8 movies in his backyard starring his dog Sparky. His dad (Martin Short) wants him to play sports. When he plays baseball, he hits a home run and his dog chases it and gets run over by a car. It gets real depressing real fast. Then Victor decides that he will use the knowledge his science teacher Mr. Rsykruski (Martin Landau) gave him and bring his dog back to life. He does and then a bunch of things happen.
My biggest problem with Frankenweenie is the middle section and lack of interesting characters. There are about twenty characters in Frankenweenie and I couldn't relate to a single one of them. They are just there to advance the story, which for an hour of the movie doesn't advance. There is a thirty minute time period where there is nothing but a bunch of different kids running around doing science fair stuff while the dog is just roaming around town. They try to do multiple experiments but they don't work. There are no characters you care about or even like (I guess Victor is slightly enjoyable but still). The movie just doesn't work. It's not that funny either. The ending, which everybody else seemed to love, with reborn pets destroying stuff didn't matter to me because I felt uninterested in the action because I had no attachment to the characters.
While this is pretty much a bashing of Frankenweenie, I still enjoyed a couple of things about it. The design is beautiful. There is so much to like about the black and white aesthetic that Burton uses and a lot of the winks he puts in the film are good as well (such as lightning flashing every two minutes). But it just doesn't matter. It's a perfect example of style over substance.
Burton fans will probably love it. I'm not a Burton fan so I can't really say. I was excited that Burton would offer a good old school film and I was excited about the design. Some would argue that he did. I would say that he didn't do a good enough job. Overall, I was very unsatisfied in the film.
THE FINAL GRADE: D+ (4.5/10)
Thankfully, Burton comes back to form with this material and makes it a dark, yet heartfelt tale that never goes that extra-mile to pull on our heartstrings and tell the kiddies something new about life and death, but at least it’s pleasant enough. Hopefully, Burton can keep this winning-record going. Not perfect, but it was still fun. Good review Josh.
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