Frankenweenie: Charming if You’re Old Enough

Tim Burton’s newest film, Frankenweenie, will charm audiences with its playful spin on the eerie original. Frankenweenie had me laughing in my seat, especially at the satirical archetypes and plot twists. I also teared up at the heartwarming bond between Victor (Charlie Tahan) and his dog. This film challenges audiences to stretch their imagination and it illustrates the monstrous consequences of doing things purely for the wrong reasons.

Young Victor Frankenstein (Charlie Tahan) loves to conduct scientific experiments and make movies with his lovable dog, Sparky (Frank Welker). His father (Martin Short) worries that Victor spends too much time concocting projects in their attic and playing with Sparky instead of socializing with the other kids. In a catastrophic chain of events, Sparky is run over by a car, leaving poor Victor devastated and lonely. Victor is inspired by his eccentric science teacher, Mr. Rzykruski (Martin Landau), to revive Sparky with lightning and electricity. He gathers the cooking utensils of his mother (Catherine O’Hara) and channels his inner Benjamin Franklin to gather a strong enough electric current (you’ll see what I mean when you see the movie). His other classmates, each vying for 1st place in the school’s annual science fair, begin to suspect that Victor has brought his dog back from the grave. They won’t rest until they learn his secrets. For in this dreary suburb, the students are constantly competing against one another in order to come out on top.

The adults blame the eccentric science teacher, Mr. Rzykruski, for corrupting their children’s minds with radical nonsense. Mr. Rzykruski isn’t afraid to call the parents closed-minded and ignorant—his condemnation still rings true to my ears. As he puts it so succinctly, although we appreciate the benefits of science, we don’t like the questions that it brings up. Later in the film, someone says bringing someone back is “upsetting” but can’t summon a reason as to why people shouldn’t navigate between life and death. The townspeople are ridiculously proud of their town, so much that they’ve built a Hollywood-like sign for New Holland. With their pitchfork mentality, they’ll do anything to defeat foreign people and foreign concepts. Frankenweenie openly criticizes the narrow prejudices that all of us harbor against radical concepts and ideas. It argues that although we pride ourselves on significantly evolving from that mindset, we still express aversion towards new technologies and sciences that displace our established worldview.

But let’s take a moment to appreciate the hokey characters. They make this film all the more worthwhile. I absolutely loved the crazy-eyed Edgar (Atticus Shaffer), Victor’s classmate who completely owns his deranged smile and badgers Victor to teach him his secrets. Toshiaki (James Hiroyuki Liao), another classmate, is a cutthroat Japanese immigrant who is extremely focused, to say the least (his fierce competitive nature strikingly contrasts with Victor’s sincere level of engagement and enthusiasm). Toshiaki sees victory as his only option. Bob (Robert Capron), another evil classmate, very closely resembles the Creature from those old Frankenstein movies. And lastly, Weird Girl (also voiced by Catherine O’Hara) doles out premonitions from her cat’s litter box. These zany characters each take turns delivering laughs and bothering poor Victor, who just wants to be reunited with his dog. Each of these antagonists are driven so heavily by self-interest that they disregard any sort of consequence their inventions or creations may incur. While this hyper-competitiveness and selfishness has hilarious consequences in the film medium, they would manifest in rather disastrous ways in the real world.

Frankenweenie is a PG stop-motion animated film featuring an awesome dog, but I think young kids may find this film to be a little intense. First of all, Sparky suffers an absolutely horrible death and has to be stitched up for revival. There are also some disturbing scenes near the climax which may scare some children. I’ve considered Burton’s animated films, including 9, the Corpse Bride, and Frankenweenie, to be targeting young adults and up because they integrate slices of black comedy with some mildly disturbing sequences. Classic Halloween tropes such as the cemetery and prophetic cats further contribute to the enjoyable Gothic quality of the film. I’m going to take a risk and venture that this movie may become a Halloween classic like The Nightmare Before Christmas. But keep the super-young ones at home until you know they can take it.