Okay, I realize this isn\u2019t an earth-shattering observation, but that Tim Burton guy is one creepy dude.\u00a0 We liked his \u201cThe Nightmare Before Christmas\u201d for its offbeat humor, but there were some really disturbing parts to the movie as well.\u00a0 His newest movie, \u201cFrankenweenie,\u201d is both more and less disturbing but, on the whole, is as normal a movie as I\u2019ve seen from him (mind you, this is not a high bar).<\/p>\n
\u201cFrankenweenie\u201d pays homage to the original story\u00a0 \u201cFrankenstein\u201d by Mary Godwin Shelley, to the Boris Karloff version of the movie, to Godzilla and its Japanese movie-makers, to the original \u201cMummy\u201d movies and probably to many other horror movies that I didn\u2019t recognize.<\/p>\n
Victor Frankenstein is a young boy whose only friend is his dog, Sparky.\u00a0 Sparky is accidentally killed by a car (this is quite traumatic if you are a dog lover, especially if you are a dog lover who is a child).\u00a0 Inspired by a new science teacher, voiced by Martin Landau who is excellent, Victor brings Sparky back to life.\u00a0 Chaos of varying types then ensues.<\/p>\n
On the face of it, the plot unfolds in a very predictable way but because this is Tim Burton, you are never quite sure whether the predictable path is the actual path (and since it is a Tim Burton movie, the answer is it is not).\u00a0 There are some excellent one-liners, but the quality of the movie depends on the whole and not any particular scene.\u00a0 \u201cFrankenweenie\u201d is creepy and dark in many parts, but the grief Victor suffers when Sparky dies is well done.\u00a0 The movie may be primarily a tribute to the horror movie genre, but it is also a movie about a boy and his dog, and the relationship between the two is the emotional crux for the entire movie.\u00a0 It\u2019s very well done.<\/p>\n
The movie is rated PG, and Common Sense Media recommends it for kids 9 and over.\u00a0 If you have a child who is visually sensitive or easily scared in the 9-11 year old range, I would wait until it comes out on DVD.\u00a0 (The movie theatre screen makes the dark atmosphere more overwhelming.)<\/p>\n
The movie is well worth seeing, especially if you have tweens or young teens.\u00a0 Our entire family really liked the movie, despite (or maybe because of) the creepy dude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Okay, I realize this isn\u2019t an earth-shattering observation, but that Tim Burton guy is one creepy dude.\u00a0 We liked his \u201cThe Nightmare Before Christmas\u201d for its offbeat humor, but there were some really disturbing parts to the movie as well.\u00a0 His newest movie, \u201cFrankenweenie,\u201d is both more and less disturbing but, on the whole, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[41],"tags":[337],"class_list":["post-641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies","tag-movies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p23QXm-al","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":643,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions\/643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mayliang.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}