Frankenweenie

When I was in college, my fiction writing professor told us that a good place to start writing was to take one of your favorite stories and change the setting. His example was writing Star Wars with a college campus subbed in for space. Well Tim Burton was obviously thinking something similar when he made his 1984 short, Frankenweenie. Now, in 2012, he resurrected the story with his signature stop motion animation as a full length feature. The story is a tweaked version of “Frankenstein.” A young Victor Frankenstein, heartbroken from the sudden death of his dog, Sparky, uses a lesson learned in science class to bring his dog back to life. Though when the other students hear of this, they fear Victor will now win the science fair. So they aim to repeat the experiment.

The film works with many of Burton’s common themes of loneliness, under-appreciated genius and a misguided public. The use of black and white ties Frankenweenie to the monster movie concepts it pays homage to, as well as acknowledging the home movie making aspect of childhood Burton has admitted to relishing. But even with the many themes, the film still runs under 90 minutes. That actually proves to be a positive in this case. Since both The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride follow similar suit, apparently the stop motion medium functions best in the 80 minute range. It doesn’t feel rushed, so there can’t really be any complaints in this area.

The voice cast is split with recognizable actors (Martin Short), Burton regulars (Wynona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara), and younger voices (Charlie Tahan, Robert Capron). The dynamic works well. Fans of the hybrid family/horror genre Tim Burton works in will find Frankenweenie to be fun and enjoyable. But others will think they’ve seen this before. The innovation that was paramount in works like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Alice in Wonderland hasn’t progressed in this instance, making it relatively predictable. Fun, but predictable.

Each film earns either zero, a half or a full arrow in five categories. The categories are Acting, Writing/Directing, Emotion, Innovation and Overall Impression. The arrows are added up to equal the full score.