ughGrooooan.
No, that's not the sound of The Creature coming to life. That was the sound film-fans around the world, myself included, collectively made when we first heard, about 2 ½ years ago, director Tim Burton, the once impossibly imaginative mind who gave us Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood, would be remaking one of his own films—a short called Frankenweenie, produced during his early days at Disney in the 1980s—expanded into the incoherent 3rd-dimension no less. Turns out, our groans were for naught, and this is one of the best things the director has done in years. But, no one would’ve guessed so when the news first broke.
At the time, a Frankenweenie remake seemed to be the latest in a long line of disappointing departures for Burton, whose career descended into an almost comical cascade of ridiculous, quite awful, remakes and re-imaginings some time in the early 2000s to never recover (even this year: his Dark Shadows was… well, not good). The most offensive of these rehashes was his pathetic aping of Planet of the Apes, that unnecessary wandering into Willy Wonka’s (or is that Charlie’s?) chocolate factory, and the nightmarish corpse of not-Christmas…
What made the news of Burton’s proposed well-dipping return worse was that the ramblings of this other Frankenweenie rumbled to life around the same time his average Alice In Wonderland (but mostly "Through the Looking Glass") was on screens in seriously-poor post-converted 3D.
Frankly, I didn’t really expect Frankenweenie—via either dimensional delivery system—to be even remotely good (did anyone?). Surprisingly though, Burton has made a very funny little dark comedy, and fashioned a film that is easily one of his finest in years.
It’s a strange turn of events that brings Burton’s retrogressed remake of his original live-action short film to the big screen. The director first adapted this story of a boy genius who reanimates his dead dog, in 1984, with a 30-minute black-and-white feature, which was supposedly so “dark” and “twisted”—note it actually wasn’t; it was just weird—that the bosses at Disney promptly fired him. Cut to 25 years later. The director has helmed cult-classics like Pee-wee’s Big Adventure and Beetlejuice, and the mega-blockbuster Batman, all for Warner Brothers. The Burton-produced (but not directed) Nightmare Before Christmas made more money for Disney-subsidiary Touchstone Pictures than anyone expected it to, while his excellent Ed Wood biopic (which he did direct) earned the same studio some industry respect in the form of 2 Oscars. And as awful as most of his post-millennium output had been, Burton still made steady profits for each and every studio, with each and every film he laid his claim to.
So, of course, Disney would have Burton back to rework the film that got him fired. However, just because Burton's back with the same story at the House of Mouse after years of reflection, doesn’t mean he’s taken any of their old notes to heart. The remake isn’t too different from the short film; although it uses animatronic puppets in place of live actors.
10-year-old Victor Frankenstein (voiced by Charlie Tahan) is a pretty cool kid—he’s an amateur filmmaker, an inventor and a genuine boy-genius. Admittedly, Victor has his problems—a doting, domesticated, mother who perhaps cares too much; and a frustrated father, who wishes his son were more of a jock, probably doesn’t care enough. Victor is also a loner; the only friend he has is his pet dog, Sparky. When Sparky dies in an accident, young Victor ruminates on the possibility of reanimation, pushed to considering the process by his strange science teacher, who introduces the idea in a freakishly frightening lecture.
Eventually, in a sequence directly referencing James Whale’s Universal-Monsters classic Frankenstein, Victor shocks life back into the creature during a lighting storm. What follows is a plot filled with other reanimated monsters returning from their graves, and descending upon the little town of New Holland—a quaint burg, populated by the likes of Victor’s classmates Elsa Van Helsing and the humpbacked, tri-toothed, Edgar E. Gore (among many others), in which a massive windmill sits atop the hillside—to wreak total havoc. Beware the Were-rat!
Like the short film from which it takes its name, Frankenweenie is, thematically, stylistically, and visually still “dark”, “twisted”, and downright creepy at times. With animals literally exploding into pieces in scenes, it’s an unexpectedly grimy and even gory PG-Disney film. But, it’s also very decent. Just know, kids under eight will probably have nightmares from all the darkness and ghoulish, stop-motion, grandstanding.
The remade Frankenweenie is the sad story of a misunderstood boy who simply loves his best friend (no mind that he's a dog), and will do anything to have him back, as it is in the original. But ballooning the runtime from the original half hour to 87-minutes has caused a few problems; the film is a bit of a lumbering mess in its first half, and doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere. Fortunately, the second half is a madcap monster-movie mashup that more than makes up for the pacing issues of the first and second acts. It’s really fun, and very, very funny.
The voice cast includes classic-Burton staples Catherine O’Hara and Winona Ryder, as well as Martin Landau, Martin Short, and Tom Kenny. Composer Danny Elfman supplies an excellent, moody score. The monochromatic visuals sprung to life through some of the most impressive stop-motion animation I’ve ever seen, look almost too polished at times. The usual herky-jerky quality of the art form was mostly blended into smoothness courtesy, I assume, computers and elaborate animatronics. I appreciate the style, although I have to wonder—how much of it was CG assisted?
This is a nostalgia trip for Burton and audiences. The film, based on a screenplay by Leonard Ripps and adapted by Burton’s go-to screenwriter John August, is very clever in its gags and humor, often paying homage to the B-movies of yesteryear. Of course, in basic plot (and even some, stolen, iconic imagery) a lot is borrowed from Whale’s Frankenstein (and by proxy, a hint of Mary Shelley’s original novel, too). But Burton and company work in little references to The Mummy, Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein, Gremlins, and Gamera… and a few, awesome, films that can be spotted in Victor’s own 8mm movie shown in the opening minutes.
Frankenweenie has fun with the 3D, too, featuring a few gags at the add dimension’s expense, without exploiting the additional space too egregiously (although I saw it in 2D DLP, so I can’t say for certain, it seems the film isn’t obvious or obnoxious with in-your-face 3D shots).
I’m quite surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Frankenweenie is easily the best thing Burton has done in a long while. And, even if it has a few issues in pacing and character development (besides Victor, basically every character is an inane genre archetype) I find it kind of impossible to be too harsh on a film that manages to pack both a reference to Mary Shelley and Giant Monster Gamera in the span of a few seconds with the same character.
Film Grade: 7/10
'Frankenweenie'
Directed by: Tim BurtonWritten by: John August
Starring: Charlie Tahan, Catherine O'Hara, Winona Ryder, Martin Short with Martin Landau and Tom Kenny
Music by: Danny Elfman
Runtime: 87 minutes
Rating: PG
Studio: Disney
No comments:
Post a Comment