Tim Burton’s back, and this time he’s going back to his roots, with a remake of his short film Frankenweenie. Working with Disney, and puppetry, can the eccentric filmmaker deliver in his own strange, and twisted, style a homage to classic black and white monster flicks, which is relevant in a technically sound 3D craving world?
In a half parody of Frankenstein, we see young Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan, Burning Bright) as a quiet, lonely science obsessed schoolboy who loves his dog Sparky. After a tragic car accident and a revolutionary science lesson, Victor manages to bring Sparky back to life during a lightning storm. Being so pleased to have his dog back, it’s hard for Victor to keep it a secret, and Victor’s classmate Edgar “E.” Gore soon finds out and learns Victor’s technique. However, to win a school science fair, half of Victor’s classmates find out about the secret, well meaning but ultimately horrible, technique Victor has learnt from E. and decide to resurrect their own animals and pets to win, and it’s up to Victor and Sparky to save the town of New Holland from being destroyed by these monsters.
There isn’t many names in the cast here; the biggest is probably Winona Ryder (Black Swan) as Elsa Van Helsing (a relatively small role as Victor’s love interest); but Tahan as Victor is decent enough for a 14 year old. He nails the depression in Sparky’s death and loneliness surrounding Victor, whilst hitting the right end of the emotional spectrum in his joy at getting his beloved dog back.
Burton seems to have made a personal choice here to bring back actors who’ve not done much in awhile, and who’ve worked with him before; like Martin Landau (Ed Wood), Martin Short (Mars Attacks!) and Catherine O’Hara (Beetlejuice); and while they’re all experienced enough to do the job, none of them particularly stand out, aside from Landau’s memorable turn as the foreign science teacher Mr. Rzykruski – a homage to Vincent Price.
The main positive and negative in Frankenweenie is that it’s pretty much two films in one; the majority of the runtime, with the remake of the Frankenstein plot, is done very well; the story of a boy and his dog is timeless and very emotive, and adding this to the story of the original Frankenstein brings more than one or two blubbers from the audience at the end of the film.
The runtime devoted to the kids creating their own monsters, on the other, is excessive; there’s simply too much time taken to fit in all the cameos and nods to these classic black and white monster films of old for any of them to sink in. There’s also silly moments where the owner of the Mummy-esque Colossus gets pushed into a coffin after being wrapped up in bandages (ramming the fact it’s a trope on classic mummy movies down your throat, in case you missed it), and making it feel like to get up to the 90 minute runtime, we have the forementioned two films, the original, and sequel, in one.
It doesn’t mean that there’s no love for these characters, and they do have their moments; the Weird Girls’ prophetic cat spelling out psychic messages for people via their first letter of their name in poop, and the beast known as Colossus going up against the Japanese kid’s giant Godzilla style monster, are actually funny. There’s even something romantic about the homages to other old Black and white style monster films which are plain and clear to see; Frankenweenie is a small love letter to them, Burton-style, wrapped in his own creative craziness, with pretty much all of them appearing, and even including a nice nod to Vincent Price.
Burton can have a tendency to have his directorial style and creative side shine over consistency and unfortunately with Frankenweenie he lets it happen again; the reasons why lightening brings these pets back to life are lost, and after the Doctor is sacked by the ignorant townsfolk of New Holland (rubbish joke by the way) and the gym teacher takes over the science lessons, what point is there to win the science fair? there isn’t a great prize at the end, and the other kids have no real motivation, so it falls flat. There’s meant to be a love interest between Victor and Elsa but they say about four lines of dialogue altogether in the film, though you’re just expected to care about the two of them together at the end of the film. It is a kids film, so you can get away with a bit, but it’s half expected for Burton to include non-thought-out aspects in both character and plot in his films, and we’re no different here.
Despite being presented to us as a children’s film and being kid friendly for most of the runtime, Frankenweenie suffers from a couple of things going too far; as a pastiche of horror film, it’s going to have specific elements, but it’s amazing how the BBFC let a few of these things slide by their usually strict requirements; especially seeing what happens to the Cat Bat (which actually went through a painful and horrible looking transformation earlier in the flick). There’s a quick cut away but we still see a point of impact and the aftermath which they probably only got away with because the film is in black and white; if it was in colour, Frankenweenie would have a reasonable level of gore for an average horror film and there’s no real explanation to justify the numerous grave-robbings that occur.
Style is the true highlight of the film however; made with puppets, the visual world is brilliant and impressive to marvel at; despite not being worth seeing in 3D, the black and white style totally suits the tributes, homages, and the tone of a classic horror movie it attempts to evoke and succeeds enormously at. The dark lighting with monochromatic palette creates a moody piece not unlike the original Frankenstein and reflects the tragedy surrounding that film, while the stop-motion technique has come a far way since the latest Wallace And Gromit outings.
Frankenweenie is a basic film, with dubious added extras from a tried and tested format, but with a touch of Burton on form and the romance flying around between a timeless couple mean it’s a winner. This is probably the most personal piece Burton has delivered on the big screen (with emotional running abound, and a whiff of the autobiographical, with Victor’s lonely childhood), and while it’s by no means perfect, Frankenweenie has a few flaws but, it’s something different, and the high concept and timeless tale of a boy and his dog, is more than enough to push this into the must see category.
Terry Lewis – @thatterrylewis.
