Victor (Charle Tahan, the deceased Sam in "Charlie St. Cloud") is a solitary kid, in love with science and film, who spends most of his free time making movies with his beloved Sparky, his invariably cheerful and painfully loyal little dog. While his parents aren't 100% behind their son's reluctance to do normal kid things, they're honestly pretty tolerant, until his father gives him an ultimatum: if Victor wants to participate in the science fair, he has to give baseball a try. Much to everyone's shock, his first time at bat has him hitting the ball out of the park... It also has Sparky chasing - and to his credit catching - the ball into the street, where he's unceremoniously hit by a car.
Victor, naturally, is inconsolable... but there is that science fair coming up! And what better experiment than reanimation? It's early established that freak lightning storms are commonplace here, so after collecting a mish mash of things that run on electricity from around the house (lightbulbs, a toaster, light-up reindeer, etc.) and wiring them all together, it's only a matter of waiting until evening falls before the experimentation begins and Sparky comes back.
The good news is that he's just as cute undead as he was alive. The bad news is that it's hard to keep this type of thing a secret and soon all the kids in town want to bring back their long lost pets (and in one case: sea monkeys) in the name of science. The end result is messy, with animals several times their original size (how that happens is never explained) wreaking havoc on the town. How will they get out of this one? You can bet Sparky plays a role.
That Tim Burton has a style is understating things: spindly characters with big heads and huge eyes move through New Holland, a generic suburb sprinkled with cookie cutter houses, white picket fences and neighborly drama. Sparky, the cheery foil to pretty much every other character in the story (with the exception to Victor's parents), is as cute and charismatic as a cartoon puppy can be. The other reanimated pets are not so friendly, and with these Mr. Burton pays homage to everything from "Gremlins" to "Gamera".
With voice talent from Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short and Winona Ryder, the film remarkably does not feature either Jonny Depp or Helena Bonham Carter - something that hasn't happened in almost ten years. "Frankenweenie" is not just based on a short story by the director, but a 1984 live-action film featuring Barret Oliver (Bastian from "The Neverending Story") as Victor. The translation into its current incarnation was done by John August, a longtime Burton collaborator who also did "Corpse Bride" and "Big Fish". Between the classic movie references, trusted collaborators and that dark signature style, Tim Burton fans will not be disappointed. Yes, seven years is a long wait, but in this case, it was worth it.
| Movie title | Frankenweenie |
|---|---|
| Release year | |
| MPAA Rating | PG |
| Our rating | |
| Summary | Tim Burton's animated, kid-friendly adaptation of (you guessed it) Frankenstein, does not disappoint. |
