A sub-par offering from Disney and Tim Burton
Sorry to be the bearer of sad news, but Tim Burton's Frankenweenie is not up to scratch. Although the trailer makes this family-friendly gothic creation look like a witty take on Frankenstien's monster with a happy yappy dog thrown in, the film is actually a rather dull, shallow take on conformity that takes itself a bit too seriously and misses way too many opportunities for humour.
The first, most notable opportunity is the Igor character, who Burton has transformed into a friendless little loner called Edgar, voiced by the brilliant Atticus Schafer. Anyone who's seen Atticus on The Middle, an American sitcom in which he plays the socially-challenged youngest son of a flawed all- American family, knows how unique this little actor is. His voice in particular is distinctive and, no offence Atticus man, but bloody funny. Sadly, he gets few lines and a functional character will little to no development.
Edgar is the one who tells the other kids at school that our protagonist, Victor Frankenstein has managed to bring his adorable dog, aptly named Sparky, back to life (in time for the science fair) after a tragic accident. The accident is handled brilliantly, Victor is presented as an innocent misfit who's jut lost his best friend, and the auditorium let's out a little sigh of sadness before we, like Victor, start hoping like hell that Sparky can rise from the dead. Even if you're not a dog person, you'll feel something here.
But it's straight-up audience manipulation, nothing particularly artful or poetic like the sad scenes in Pixar's Up, nor do we get the great characters of Up, which was aimed at a similar cross-section of adults and children, or the comedy. To compare it to something of Burton's you'd have to look at his most affective work, Edward Scissorhands (still his best), and admit that Frankenweenie is nowhere near as clever or amusing.
Burton pays a lot of attention to setting up the town and the townsfolk of New Holland and their celebration of Dutch Day which features a performance by classic goth girl for the masses, Winona Ryder. She plays Victor's neighbour Elsa Van Helsing whose chief purpose is to own a lady dog that Sparky likes to rub noses with. It's a pointless role and Ryder is wasted in it. There are a gaggle of other pale-faced, gaunt looking Frankenstein-esque characters whose quirks prop up the inexcusably boring lead characters of Victor and his parents (Catherine O'Hara and Martin Short) but they are essentially a recycling of Burton's previous works.
Its trailer makes Frankenweenie look sharp, witty and original but it contains the two minutes 30 seconds of the films best bits, everything else fails to make the mark.
Frankenweenie is in cinemas now
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