The Movie:

Directed by Tim Burton and based on his own 1984 short film of the same name, 2012's stop motion animated feature Frankenweenie brings us to the small town of New Holland and introduces us to Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan), an awkward kid whose mother (Catharine O'Hara) and father (Martin Short) worry that he doesn't have many friends. This doesn't bother Victor, however, he's completely content making amateur monster movies in the family's backyard starring his dog, Sparky.

Things change for Victor when the weird girl at school presents him with a cat turd she's rescued from the litter box in the shape of the letter V. Apparently her cat, Mr. Whiskers, dreams about people and poops their first initial - and when that happens, something big occurs. Victor understandably pays this no mind but then, when his father pressures him to try baseball, the cat's omen proves more reliable than anyone thought. Victor smacks the ball and Sparky, observing from the stands, gives chase. Unfortunately, that chase takes him into the road where he's hit by a car. The family bury him but Victor gets an idea when the new science teacher, Mr. Rzykruski (a scene stealing Martin Landau), plants a seed in his brain. Before you know it, Victor has used lightning to reanimate his dearly departed best friend. When some of the other kids in school learn of this, they figure he's a shoe in to win the upcoming science contest and so they head to the nearby pet cemetery in hopes of digging up dead animals to outdo Victor - but of course, all of this comes with consequence and the town of New Holland will never be the same, much to the dismay of the town's mayor, Mr. Burgemeister (Short again), and his niece Elsa Van Helsing (Winona Ryder), who just so happen to live next door to the Frankenstein family.

Frankenweenie is a bit of a mixed bag. While in many ways it's a return to the darker material that Burton made a name for himself with, it also lacks the heart that made much of that early work resonate with audiences. Though the director's love for classic monster movies is once again on full display (there are references throughout the film to Universal monster movies, Hammer Horror classics, the literary work of Mary Shelley, Vincent Price pictures and even a few nods to Japanese Kaiju films) the film is a simple blend of the classic Frankenstein horror tragedy mixed up with 'a boy and his dog' style folk story. The problem is that the 'boy and his dog' aspect of the story lacks. The monster mayhem is fun and provides enough entertainment value to carry the picture but while Vincent is willing to defy the laws of nature to bring his best friend back to life, we don't quite get resonance we want from their interactions together. A romantic subplot that is strongly hinted at between Vincent and Elsa, who do most of their talking through a hole in the fence, is cute but doesn't wind up going anywhere while Sparky's initial death fails to hit as hard as it needs to. What made the short film so charming - heart and character - is sadly short changed here in favor of some admittedly very impressive visuals and great gothic atmosphere. The supporting characters in the film should have fleshed out the cast in interesting ways but instead add very little to the picture aside from occasionally effective comic relief.

The film does deserve credit for slyly working in a nice message, a moral even. At one point Rzykruski, replaced in his position by the gym teacher because of his unorthodox ways, discusses with Victor the perils of science. During this brief exchange he notes the importance of intentions and of being true to yourself, a message which obviously effects Victor and which he in turn carries throughout the picture. In a day and age where pictures aimed a younger audience play to the lowest common denominator, it's nice to see a film like this that expresses in interesting and creative ways the importance of individualism.

The film does have some effective moments of humor scattered throughout and there are bits and pieces where Victor's unrequited love for Sparky shines through but it never quite feels true. Thankfully the visuals are strong enough to carry the picture, and if the characters never quite reach the believably alive stature of those seen in The Nightmare Before Christmas they occasionally come quite close. The design work here, which looks to be somewhere between that scene in the aforementioned film and the later The Corpse Bride, has all the quirky, weird detail you'd expect from one of Burton's stop motion projects but the re-animated pets wind up with more appeal than the human characters. As the various animals are brought back to life and go through different changes brought about by the impure motives of Vincent's fellow classmates the movie reaches some impressive heights of mayhem - but by the time it's all said and done, there's a bit too much wasted space. The end result is good, but it could and should have been great.

Video:

Frankenweenie arrives on Blu-ray in its original aspect ratio of 1.85.1 in a gorgeous AVC encoded 1080p high definition presentation. The black and white image shows loads of detail visible not only in the various models brought to life in the stop motion animation technique used in the film but in the backgrounds and sets as well - you can see the dust on top of a book in one scene and not the texture of the dried parsley used as leaves in an outdoor scene. Black levels are rich and deep while shadow detail, an important part of the look of this particular movie, remains revelatory and impressive. Contrast looks spot on, with clean whites and every shade of grey imaginable filling in the rest of the movie perfectly. There are no problems with compression artifacts or edge enhancement nor is there any obvious filtering and we wind up with a deep, strong image that offers impressive depth throughout. This is pretty much a reference quality image.

Note: Although an MVC encoded 3D version is included (on its own disc) compatible hardware was not available at the time of this review.