Dog Daze: Director Tim Burton champions an unlikely hero in ‘Frankenweenie’

Writer-director Tim Burton has a way of making us sympathize with monsters. Whether it’s Beetlejuice or Edward Scissorhands, Burton makes freaks and geeks into lovable, misunderstood creatures. He tries to work that magic once again with Frankweenie, a remake/extension of a short film he made nearly 30 years ago. Sparky, the dog to which the film’s title refers, certainly comes off as a real hero despite his stitched together physical appearance and unnatural return from the grave.

In paying homage to James Whale’s 1931 film that was loosely based on Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel, Frankenweenie starts with the tragic death of Victor’s (Charlie Tahan) faithful and friendly dog Sparky. After the poor thing gets run over by a car, Victor and his parents bury him in a tearful ceremony. Victor finds it difficult to concede that his best (and only) friend is no more and so, when he hears about the power of electricity in his science class, he thinks he may have found a way bring to Sparky back.

In a scene that’s clearly derived from Whale’s film, Victor hoists the lifeless pup into the sky in hopes of attracting a reanimating bolt of lightning. His experiment works, but he tries to keep the dog, which has bolts sticking out of its neck and shows the stitches where it’s been sewn back together, out of the public eye. Once the other kids at school find out about Victor’s project, they attempt to replicate it in order to win the school science fair, in turn creating a slew of monsters that then wreak havoc on the town.

Filmed in black-and-white and released in 3-D, Frankweenie looks terrific. The 3-D effects are quite minimal but the animation is outstanding. There are some “insider” horror movie jokes that adults will appreciate. The only real problem here is that many of the characters aren’t fully developed. Though he never literally speaks, Sparky may well be the most well-rounded of the lot. Victor and his family aren’t written in such a way that we really identify with them and the same goes for Victor’s passionate but off-putting science teacher, Mr. Rzykruski (Martin Landau). The bad guy mayor (Martin Short) is a mere caricature and the same goes for the boy’s love interest (Winona Ryder). Mary Shelley knew that it takes more than one misunderstood monster hero to make a good story, something Burton appears to have overlooked this time around.

Frankenweenie is proving to be the critics’ darling, but, like ParaNorman, it’s a kid movies that (if the screening we went to is any indication) not all kids are going to enjoy.