Frankenweenie

Well, the holiday season is pretty much over, which means that those of us who work in retail can actually take a holiday.  This gives me time to review a few noteworthy animated films from the last quarter of 2012 that I did not get around to reviewing last year.  In that spirit, let's take a look at Frankenweenie.


Tim Burton seems to be one of those "love him or hate him" directors to most people, but I find myself occupying a middle ground in my opinion of him.  His work always tends to be very visually interesting, but all too often he seems to sacrifice story for whatever form of creepy took his fancy at the time. 

Frankenweenie has a rather interesting history.  It is actually a direct remake of one of his earliest short films, telling the story of a young boy who brings his dead dog back to life with the power of miscellaneous unrealistic movie science.  Twenty years later, and now a much more famous director, Burton returned to his idea, making it into the feature length film reviewed here.  The fact that Burton returned to this idea suggests that it was, in many ways, his pet project, so he certainly had passion on his side.  Passion can easily be blind, however, so let's take a look at the results. 

Visuals: Like I said, Burton always brings something interesting in a purely visual sense, and this is no exception.  This film's visual charm comes in two main areas.  The most immediately obvious is that the film is entirely in black and white.  This is easily the most daring aspect of the movie, and I can only pity the poor Disney staff members who had to try to market a black and white movie to children.  It works like a treat though, echoing countless classic Hollywood horror movies, which is suitable for this homage to the Frankenstein story.  It lends a creepy melancholy to the setting that greatly benefits the movie. 

The second good aspect of the visuals is the stop-motion itself.  This actually works very well with the black and white, as the exaggerated movements of stop motion lend the film some energy to make up for the lack of colour.  In addition, the animation is, on the whole, very well-done.  Although the movements are exaggerated, there's a surprising smoothness to the transition between each frame, with none of the choppiness that is noticeable in works such as The Nightmare Before Christmas.  There are two noteworthy exceptions.  First, one prominent minor character has limited mouth movements, with it appearing to consist of just an open and closed state.  Each state looks interesting, but the animation jumps from one to the other.  The second example is actually an intentional case of bad animation, with Victor's home movies actually being shot as if they were very primitive stop-motion.  It works on screen. 

The set and character designs are a mixture of homages to various films.  Obviously, there's plenty of Frankenstein references, such as the windmill.  There also appear to be several references to earlier Burton movies, such as one character whose design echoes Jack Skellington (okay, Burton only produced and helped to write that movie, but you know what I mean), and the general appearance of the suburban setting reminded me a lot of Edward Scissorhands.  Trying to list all of the references would take a long time and remove a lot of the fun, so I won't go any further into it. 

Suffice to say, the film is an utter joy to watch in a visual sense, ranking among Burton's best. 

Music: The score was written by Danny Elfman, a long-time collaborator with Tim Burton.  His work is as good as always, with the music always fitting the mood.  My favourite part of the score was the bit that plays when Victor brings his dog back to life.  The music here made the scene work all by itself, and was easily the emotional high point of the film, though other parts certainly work as well. 

Plot: Victor Frankenstein (yes, unlike Hotel Transylvania, this film remembers that Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster; kudos to you, Mr Burton) is young boy whose only friend is his dog Sparky.  When Sparky is accidentally killed, Victor decides to use his knowledge of science to bring him back to life.  The procedure works, but Victor has to hide his reanimated dog from his neighbours, who are suspicious of anything out of the ordinary, and his classmates, who wish to use this science for their own ends. 

Honestly, there's nothing of importance that you won't see coming as you're watching the film for the first time.  This is not a movie of surprises, but it is rather about telling a simple story well.  From a plot perspective, Burton succeeds in this.  The story makes basic sense, in a cliched horror movie sense (for example, there's no way you could actually bring a dead animal back to life with lightning, but we accept this for the sake of the story), and there were no glaring plot holes that came to mind.  There are, however, a few minor subplots that are unexpectedly dropped.  In particular, the subplot that most interested me, which concerned the neighbourhood's reaction to Victor's effective but controversial science teacher, was left with a conclusion that failed to satisfy me.  These are minor things though, and the main story does work as well as I expected. 

Characters: It's here that the film begins to fall apart.  For what it's worth, a lot of the characters are very good.  Victor is an eccentric outcast with a talent for filmmaking, and his passion for his art is clear.  He almost appears to be a self-insert of Tim Burton as a young boy (I confess I know nothing about Burton's life; this is merely how it appeared to me), and while such a thing could be problematic, Burton is able to to instil a reckless edge to Victor's creativity that keeps him interesting. 

Victor's parents are essentially the standard fictional parents, but are no worse as characters for it. They are the well-balanced individuals to contrast with the town's collection of eccentrics. And they are a very eccentric collection. From Victor's Vincent Price-esque science teacher to the town's stuffy mayor, from the introverted girl-next door to the exceedingly extroverted Edgar "E" Gore (much as you'd expect him in appearance and personality, but surprisingly different in other ways), they're all entertaining to watch.

The weak point is Sparky. He's the same cliched dog we've seen dozens, if not hundreds of times, in movies and TV shows before.  His entire character is: he's a dog.  This is a problem, because Burton seems to think that's enough to make him likeable and to have the audience care about him.  This may indeed work for many people, but what's happening here is that people aren't so much liking Sparky as they are liking dogs in general.  When someone doesn't like dogs, as is the case with me, then it becomes hard to give a damn when he dies, and given that this is the main emotional thrust of the narrative, it really hurts things. 

Voice acting: Overall, the voice acting was good, though nothing spectacular.  The voices fall into two main groups: the down-to-earth and the exaggerated.  This basic idea is very common in Burton's films, which frequently feature a more normal protagonist contrasted with the eccentric minor characters.  This is the case here.  Victor and his parents make up the down-to-earth group, lending a slightly detatched quality to their dialogue that aids the film's creepy atmosphere.  The minor characters are mostly voiced as charicatures.  This is by no means a bad thing, as it greatly aids the humour. 

I would like to single out one bad voice and one especially good voice.  While I have generally enjoyed what I've seen on Winona Ryder's work in the past, her attempts to voice Victor's next-door neighbour Elsa Van Helsing are feeble at best.  While she is undoubtedly supposed to come off as emotionally withdrawn and depressed, this is taken too far, to the point where it's impossible to take seriously and doesn't even work as dark comedy.  At the other end of the spectrum is Martin Landau as Mr Rzykruski (I had to copy and paste that, and have long since forgotten how it is pronounced), Victor's science teacher.  While Landau's performance is mostly a take on Vincent Price's standard screen persona, he is also able to inject the role with a surprising amount of tenderness at appropriate moments.  It's rather unfortunate that the character's subplot is never adequately resolved. 

Emotion: This is where the film should logically succeed, and yet fails the most.  The problem is that most of the emotion is supposed to come from the relationship between Victor and Sparky.  Unfortunately, as with Sparky himself, this is never developed sufficiently for the audience to buy it solely on the basis of the movie.  I'm going to take a punt here and say that Tim Burton had a dog as a child, and that he was very close to that dog.  That's lovely for him, and that could make fantastic material for a film.  Unfortunately, he assumes that every member of the audience had a pet, preferably a more traditional one like a dog (more unusual pets, even cats, seem to exist in the film primarily as objects of derision) and will thus instantly understand the emotional bond.  I didn't have a pet growing up, and I certainly wouldn't have a dog if a situation ever came up where a pet was feasible in my life.  I doubt I'm that unusual in that regard.  Guess what, Burton?  It's your job to make me believe in the relationship that forms the core of your movie.  You can't just assume we'll instantly understand. 

This is why I think that "A boy and his dog" movies with more unusual pets tend to be better at making an emotional connection.  Even a movie as cheesy as Free Willy sets out to make the whale likeable, because the director knew that the audience wasn't going to believe such a relationship without some effort on his or her part.  Sadly, Frankenweenie fails in that regard, to the point where the ending, which was probably intended to be a tearjerker, left me bored and wanting the credits to roll. 

Conclusion: Frankenweenie is a very entertaining film, positively dripping with Burton's visual style and wit.  The characters are entertaining, and the plot is a nice homage to various old horror movies, while still managing to make some degree of sense.  Unfortunately, while Burton's excellent direction is mostly a treat to watch here, it can't salvage the fundamentally trite central relationship.  This brings what could have been what could have been the year's best animated movie and brings it down to just being a good film. 

Still, it's definitely entertaining, and worth a watch on DVD, unless you have a particular dislike of Burton's work. 

Final rating: 3.5/5