This latest bomb from Tim Burton is an original movie that I wish I had liked more than I did. I was rooting for it, I really was, but it never quite grabbed me the way I had hoped. I think the film’s young target audience (it is made for children) will probably hate it.
What Works: The last third is the strongest. There’s something sort of ingenious about having a pet turtle blown up into a giant Godzilla monster. [But this sequence——which also includes a disgusting rat monster and half bat/cat thing——will be too scary for younger children.] And a movie has to get originality points for being a black and white stop-motion animated picture based around a reanimated dead dog. That takes balls that Burton hasn’t shown in his last few non-animated features.
What Doesn’t Work: It’s an easier film to admire than to enjoy. And it loses the majority of its audience—-parents and children—-in the first five minutes, when one of the characters (who, typical Burton-style is grotesque) shows off a V-shaped cat turd, and the movie lingers on it for what feels like five minutes. Plus, I always find Burton’s films are a little faux-crazy, as in they are certainly “quirky” but there’s something so hermetically sealed-in and idiosyncratic about his style that what should feel exhilarating often feels sluggish and claustrophobic. His movies never reach the delirious energy they should, and are too often wedded to a fairly conventional plot structure.
What I Would Have Done Differently: You mean, what would I have differently about this black and white, stop-motion animated, riff on Frankenstein and old monster movies? Well…uhhhh…good question…