"Frankenweenie" Review

Love him or hate him, you can't say that Tim Burton doesn't know what he like to see in a movie. Basically every film with his touch on it - be he producer or director - always features at least a few of the many tropes he consistently uses. Frankenweenie may be the Tim Burtoniest movie he's made in a long while, as it includes black-and-white imagery, a misfit protagonist, some social commentary, music by Danny Elfman, stop motion animation, distinctive character designs, dogs, stripes, Catherine O'Hara, stitches, a creepy atmosphere, a vague time period, Winona Ryder,  weird children, overbearing parents, Martin Landau, lots of cool monsters... you get the picture. So does Frankenweenie use all its cliches to help itself, or hurt itself? Well... the best answer is, both.

A young boy named Victor Frankenstein (yes, really) loves his dog, Sparky, more than anything else in the world. Sparky is basically Victor's only friend, and the star of his many amateur movies. But one day, Sparky is tragically killed in a car accident, and Victor is left heartbroken. In an act of desperation, Victor uses some basic knowledge learned in Science class, as well as his own interest in the subject, to stitch Sparky's corpse back together and try to use electricity to bring him back to life- and, staggeringly, it works- Sparky lives again, and the two friends are reunited Victor does his best to keep his amazing achievement a secret, but word ends up getting out, and soon, all of Victor's classmates have their own plans to bring back dead creatures in time for the school Science Fair.

The central problem with Frankenweenie is that it has a very simple premise that is executed in a far too complex way. The basic story of a boy who reanimates his dead dog is an intriguing idea, and there are plenty of ways to play around with the implications and possible outcomes. After all, dogs do die eventually, and accepting that fact is something that any child with a dog has to face eventually- that lesson is learned in many other films in years past, like Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, Marley & Me, etc. But what if that was a lesson the kid didn't want to learn? What if, by his own hands, he adds an extra step to that formula: boy meets dog-boy loves dog and dog loves boy-dog dies... dog comes back to life? That's an incredible idea, one that deserves a lot of credit. But Burton, unfortunately, completely squanders it.

The bulk of the film barely even features Victor or Sparky, let alone the two of them together. There are a large number of supporting characters, all of whom get a bit too much screen time for their own good. They have little in the way of unique personality, most of them fitting one of three templates: one of Victor's creepy, overly-serious classmates who wants to replicate his experiments; a jerk grown-up that either hates or doesn't understand kids; or completely devoid of any unique traits at all. The voice actors are also rather underwhelming in some respects (though others aren't that bad)- especially the characters of Edgar Gore (E. Gore, get it?), who is clearly meant to be a Peter Lorre tribute, but whose child actor makes barely any attempt to actually impersonate Lorre; and Nassor (voiced by Martin Short of all people), whose design is clearly based on Frankenstein's Monster, but Short's Boris Karloff impression is stilted and unimpressive.

It's a shame, really, as the overall design of the characters and film is actually something quite interesting. All the characters look interesting and unique, and there are a lot of monsters in the film that have really great designs as well. Burton is very good at creating odd-looking beings and people, and as far as design goes, he's at top form here.

The animation is to be commended, also. The third act features a lot of complex stunts and effects that were no doubt very hard to pull off in stop-motion, and the characters all have a lot of, well, character to them. Much of Sparky's personality is seen through his behavior - since he is, of course, only a dog, and doesn't appear all that much - and the way he is animated makes him instantly lovable. His tail wags, he runs and jumps around energetically, and you can always tell what he's thinking just by looking at his face. He's your dog, essentially- anyone who's ever spent a lot of time around a canine will see something about them in Sparky. It's quite a shame, again, that the relationship between Sparky and Victor is so underdeveloped, because not a lot of time is used or needed to make you relate to the two- you do almost immediately.

Frankenweenie has a lot of style, and it does, at least, do a good job of homaging to classic horror films of the 30s-50s. It's just a real shame that that style was used in favor of any focus on the genuinely exciting story premise that it has.

Stars: ** (Out of 5)
Awful