Frankenweenie is a fun, silly movie that has an old soul

Frankenweenie is the story about young Victor whose dog, Sparky is brought back to life using electricity.  Once Sparky comes back to life things go horribly awry for the city, as well as, Victor’s family and friends.  Sure the plot sounds familiar, but this is a Tim Burton movie, shot in black and white and it’s in 3D.

Oh, that’s why it sounds familiar you say?  True, Tim Burton’s movies have that same feel, look and he tends to use the same cast in many of his movies.  Knowing that, the biggest thing that can truly make a Tim Burton movie stand out is the script.  Thankfully the script for Frankenweenie has emotion, heart, humor and is sweet and pure, instead of focusing on trying to be weird or different.

Sure, I’ll see a stop motion movie about a dog that dies.

The whole dog dying element of the movie is handled gracefully and not dwelled on.  Even when young Victor decides to reanimate Sparky it’s done in such a way that has more emotion and feeling than schlock value.  The movie also doesn’t focus on Sparky.  90 minutes of a movie about a child and his reanimated, Frankenstein dog would be hard pressed to be entertaining.

That’s where the twist comes in.  About half way through it turns into a B-grade monster movie.  Victor’s school friends dig up their deceased pets to have them reanimated the same way that Sparky was.

Another pleasant surprise was the score that was done by Danny Elfman.  In this case Elfman scores it very low key and pleasant, not in the stereotypical way that he normally does with Burton’s movies.  The score is so muted and dare I say, normal, you may not even recognize it as Elfman’s work. That’s a good thing because it focuses the music on complimenting the story, rather than standing out as it can in other movies.

Frankenweenie is a fun, loose movie that is quite silly, despite the death undertones.  The black and white does give the stop animation a retro, warm feel.  However, the 3D added nothing to the story or my enjoyment of the movie.  Some of the images and humor might be too spooky for kids under 8.  There were some gags about body parts falling off or things coming out of the sutured areas on Sparky that might scare the young ones.