Review of Frankenweenie (2012) by Melvin W — 04 Feb 2013

Mrs. Frankenstein: When you loose someone you love they move into a special place in your heart. .

"The electrifying dog is back from beyond the grave.".

Everybody has their personal favorite Tim Burton, and for a long time mine has been Ed Wood. Well, that has changed. My new favorite is this short little animated film, Frankenweenie. I fell in love with it from the very start. The moment the Disney castle goes from normal to black and white, a storm brews, and we hear the familiar sound of a Danny Elfman score start to hum; I knew this was going to be something extremely special. I wasn't let down at all either. Tim Burton is back to his roots and back in top form after a few years of "so-so" movies; and I actually enjoyed Alice in Wonderland.

Frankenweenie takes the classic story of a child and his dog. Victor is a young boy who doesn't socialize much. He spends his time making movies and is enamored by science. When his beloved dog, Sparky parishes; he harnesses the knowledge his new science teacher gave him to try to bring his dog back from the dead. He does so successfully, but keeping it a secret may end up being a little harder then he expected. Especially when a bunch of kids trying to win a science fair start sticking their noses into it.

There's so much to love here. The setting is absolutely perfect. Think of the Edward Scissorhands setting, then animate it. That's the setting of Frankenweenie. Then there's the perfect tone setting score from Danny Elfman and beautiful black and white animation that looks phenomenal. Add to it a great take on the classic Frankenstein story, and a great voice cast to go along with it, and you have an instant classic on your hands. It's almost like Nightmare Before Christmas conceived a child.

Frankenweenie is beautiful, it's funny, it's creepy(in a way), it's heartwarming, it's... dare I say, perfect. This is a new favorite of mine and one I hope to watch with my children when I get to that point of my life. It's pure filmmaking genius from a pure filmmaking genius. Anyone who wrote Tim Burton off, suck on this, because he's obviously a long way from gone. I cannot wait to sit down and enjoy this film many, many times over in the future.