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  • 2019 Films
    • 4 Stars >
      • A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
      • For Sama
      • Jojo Rabbit
      • Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood
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      • Alita: Battle Angel
      • Blinded by the Light
      • Booksmart
      • John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
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    • 3 Stars >
      • Allied
      • Arrival
      • Author: The JT LeRoy Story
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      • A Monster with a Thousand Heads
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      • Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
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      • War Dogs
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      • Equals
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      • Queen of Katwe
      • Race
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    • 2 Stars >
      • Alice Through the Looking Glass
      • American Pastoral
      • Bad Moms
      • The BFG
      • Blair Witch
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      • The Finest Hours
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      • Suicide Squad
    • 1.5 Stars >
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      • Allegiant
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      • How to Be Single
      • The Huntsman: Winter's War
      • Ip Man 3
      • Zoolander 2
    • 1 Star >
      • Gods of Egypt
      • Ice Age: Collision Course
      • My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
      • Now You See Me 2
      • Ratchet & Clank
      • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
    • 0.5 Stars >
      • Ben-Hur
      • Norm of the North
      • Ride Along 2
  • 2015 Films
    • 4 Stars >
      • The Big Short
      • Ex Machina
      • Jafar Panahi's Taxi
      • Steve Jobs
      • The Tribe
      • While We're Young
      • Youth
    • 3.5 Stars >
      • Best of Enemies
      • Bridge of Spies
      • Brooklyn
      • Clouds of Sils Maria
      • Concussion
      • The End of the Tour
      • The Hateful Eight
      • Inside Out
      • It Follows
      • Mad Max: Fury Road
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      • Mistress America
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    • 3 Stars >
      • The Age of Adaline
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      • James White
      • Janis: Little Girl Blue
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      • Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
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      • MERU
      • Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
      • Mustang
      • Pan
      • The Peanuts Movie
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      • Pixels
      • San Andreas
      • The Second Mother
      • Son of Saul
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      • We Are Your Friends
      • Woman in Gold
    • 2.5 Stars >
      • American Ultra
      • Anomalisa
      • Ant-Man
      • The Assassin
      • The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
      • Boulevard
      • Crimson Peak
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      • Far from the Madding Crowd
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      • Furious 7
      • The Gunman
      • Hippocrates: Diary of a French Doctor
      • In the Heart of the Sea
      • Jurassic World
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      • Listen to Me Marlon
      • Macbeth
      • The New Rijksmuseum
      • No Escape
      • Spy
      • The Visit
      • A Walk in the Woods
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      • The Wolfpack
    • 2 Stars >
      • The 33
      • Aloft
      • Black Sea
      • Do I Sound Gay?
      • Fifty Shades of Grey
      • Focus
      • Freeheld
      • Get Hard
      • The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2
      • Joy
      • Minions
      • Mississippi Grind
      • The Night Before
      • The Salvation
      • The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
      • Seventh Son
      • Terminator Genisys
      • Tomorrowland
      • True Story
    • 1.5 Stars >
      • Chappie
      • Desert Dancer
      • Hot Tub Time Machine 2
      • The Divergent Series: Insurgent
      • Jupiter Ascending
      • Maggie
      • Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
      • Run All Night
      • Ted 2
      • Vacation
    • 1 Star >
      • The Lazarus Effect
      • Magic Mike XXL
      • The Transporter Refueled
    • 0.5 Stars >
      • The Gallows
  • 2014 Films
    • 4 Stars >
      • Calvary
      • A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
      • Inherent Vice
      • The LEGO Movie
      • Life Itself
      • A Most Violent Year
      • Mr. Turner
      • The Theory of Everything
    • 3.5 Stars >
      • American Sniper
      • Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
      • The Boxtrolls
      • Boyhood
      • The Equalizer
      • Fury
      • Gone Girl
      • Guardians of the Galaxy
      • The Imitation Game
      • Like Father, Like Son
      • Mommy
      • Nymphomaniac: Vol. I
      • Particle Fever
      • Selma
      • Top Five
      • Whiplash
    • 3 Stars >
      • 22 Jump Street
      • Alive Inside
      • Beside Still Waters
      • The Book of Life
      • Captain America: The Winter Soldier
      • The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: THEM
      • Draft Day
      • Edge of Tomorrow
      • Get on Up
      • Godzilla
      • The Grand Budapest Hotel
      • The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
      • I Am Ali
      • The Judge
      • Kill the Messenger
      • Locke
      • Love Is Strange
      • Nas: Time Is Illmatic
      • Night Moves
      • The November Man
      • The One I Love
      • The Overnighters
      • The Raid 2
      • Rosewater
      • Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
      • St. Vincent
      • Still Alice
      • Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon
      • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
      • Two Days, One Night
      • Unbroken
      • Under the Skin
      • Wild
      • X-Men: Days of Future Past
    • 2.5 Stars >
      • 3 Days to Kill
      • About Last Night
      • Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
      • Art and Craft
      • As Above, So Below
      • Begin Again
      • Blood Ties
      • Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
      • Divergent
      • The Expendables 3
      • Fading Gigolo
      • Foxcatcher
      • The Giver
      • The Grand Seduction
      • Horns
      • Horrible Bosses 2
      • The Hundred-Foot Journey
      • Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
      • Jersey Boys
      • Listen Up Philip
      • Magic in the Moonlight
      • The Maze Runner
      • Men, Women & Children
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      • Mr. Peabody & Sherman
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      • Need for Speed
      • Non-Stop
      • Point and Shoot
      • RoboCop
      • Tracks
      • Transcendence
      • Veronica Mars
      • Winter's Tale
    • 2 Stars >
      • 300: Rise of an Empire
      • Alan Partridge
      • The Amazing Spider-Man 2
      • The Art of the Steal
      • Big Hero 6
      • Blended
      • Exodus: Gods and Kings
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      • I, Frankenstein
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      • Brick Mansions
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      • Left Behind
      • The Legend of Hercules
      • Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
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      • A Haunted House 2
  • 2013 Films
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      • Frances Ha
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      • We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks
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      • Captain Phillips
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      • God Loves Uganda
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    • 3 Stars >
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      • American Hustle
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      • Dead Man Down
      • Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay
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      • G.I. Joe: Retaliation
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    • 1 Star >
      • The Hangover Part III
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  • 2011 Films
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      • Page One: Inside the New York Times
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    • 2 Stars >
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    • 1.5 Stars >
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      • One Day
      • Priest
      • Restless
    • 1 Star >
      • The Three Musketeers
      • Toast
      • Transformers: Dark of the Moon
  • Misc...
    • 2019 Middleburg Film Festival
    • 2019 AFI DOCS Film Festival
    • 2018 AFI DOCS Film Festival
    • 2017 Middleburg Film Festival
    • 2016 Middleburg Film Festival
  • Review Index
  • About Me

Frankenweenie

Picture

Directed by: Tim Burton
Written by: Leonard Ripps, Tim Burton, John August
Starring: Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Charlie Tahan, Atticus Shaffer, Winona Ryder, Robert Capron, James Hiroyuki Liao, Conchata Ferrell, Christopher Lee
Animation/Comedy/Family/Horror/Sci-Fi - 87 min

Picture
The town of New Holland must be Tim Burton's dream of what a town should be.  There is a large windmill hovering on the edge of town, an abnormally spacious pet cemetery, and most of the school kids are various shades of macabre characters from horror literature and films.  Even the town's weather is foreboding as there is a nightly thunderstorm accompanied by frequent lightning strikes.  The electrons flying through the clouds in New Holland are always on the lookout for the perfect location to strike.

Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan) would be an odd child in a normal town with run of the mill kids, but in New Holland, Victor is not that much different from his peers, although he is much more adept at practical science activities than they are.  The new science teacher, who has the best name of a science teacher ever, Mr. Rzykruski (Martin Landau), is an homage to Vincent Price and has the longest upper lip in the history of cinema, live action or stop-motion animation.  Victor's classmates include the Igor knock-off, Edgar 'E' Gore (Atticus Shaffer), Elsa Van Helsing (Winona Ryder), an Asian kid named Toshiaki (James Hiroyuki Liao), and the Mummy knock-off, Nassor (Martin Short).  

Sparky is Victor's faithful dog.  He is the star of Victor's amateur 8mm short films, sleeps by his bed at night, and may be Victor's only friend.  After an accident sends Sparky to the pet cemetery, Victor is inconsolable until he sees the science teacher reanimate a dead frog's legs with electricity.  Luckily, Victor has an enormous attic full of all the strange apparatus's it would require to hook up and hoist recently departed Sparky out of the the skylight during a thunderstorm.  You are not far off if it reminds you of Edward Scissorhands.  It works!  Sparky is back; however, looking at Sparky is not very appealing and I cannot imagine really young movie-goers will appreciate his appearance either.  His skin, tail, and ears resemble a patch-work quilt with hideous stitch marks throughout and bolts sticking out of his neck.  Victor has Sparky back but perhaps keeping the whole thing under wraps will be more difficult than bringing the dog back to life.

The school kids are all competing to win the science fair and the competition is fierce.  Instead of following in his ancestor's ways and being a loyal and adept aide, this 'E' Gore is underhanded, conniving, and has a mouth which blabs far too much for a kid who seems to only have three teeth.  Pretty soon, Victor's reanimation facility is not the only game in town.  There is Shelley the turtle (love the pun on the name), Mr. Whiskers the cat, and something called Colossus which are all about to start causing trouble in New Holland.  This is not the most creative Tim Burton film out there, but if it makes a new generation want to seek out the original Frankenstein, Dracula, and Mummy, then it will serve its purpose. 

Tim Burton directed Frankenweenie but he did not write the script.  More scenes in the classroom with the science teacher would be welcome instead of science fair experiment treachery.  Also, Winona Ryder's character Elsa Van Helsing is far too underused; here is a supporting character who could have really given this story a needed jolt.  Despite its kid-friendly previews, I would not take the youngest of the young to the theater for this one.  There are enough knowing side gags for the adults and creepy crawly humor for the 3rd graders, but younger than that…probably not their cup of tea.  The story is a bit forgettable but the wink-wink praise for its horror ancestors makes Frankenweenie worth the trip.

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