Frankenweenie

 (2012) ****

In the latest from Tim Burton, young Victor Frankenstein loses his beloved dog Sparky to a fatal car accident. Unable to bear the loss, he uses his budding scientific mind to electrocute life back into the dog. For fear that the townsfolk will not understand he tries to hide Sparky but the dog finds his way out while Victor is at school. One of his classmates, Edgar “E” Gore spots the dog and blackmails Victor into showing him how he did it. Edgar blabs to his fellow classmates anyway. Fearing that the coveted science fair trophy will go to Victor, the other students steal his formula and decide to revive some pets of their own. The results are disastrous.

 From the original short featuring Barret Oliver

The new Victor and Sparky, still just as cute

  

Tim Burton hits the mark with this delightful remake of his 1984 short film. All the characters are a little creepy so Victor should fit into this town quite well, however his only real friend is Sparky. Now unlike so many films where his classmates and such relentlessly pick on the friendless child, there is no picking going on here, Victor simply chooses to just hang with Sparky. I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to see a kid’s film that doesn’t follow the cookie cutter format of nearly every other film. Frankenweenie has all the charm of The Nightmare Before Christmas minus the musical aspect (safe viewing for JPX). We did see it at the IMAX Theater but felt the 3D didn’t really add anything to the film. Sparky is adorable and has such a loveable happy-go-lucky personality. I just wanted to hug him and squeeze him and call him George.