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defrogThere’s been an awful lot of them this year, hasn’t there?
Well, I've watched them, and I have opinions and crap. So ...
Frankenweenie
Tim Burton remakes and expands his early short film of a boy who uses Frankenstein science to bring his dead dog Sparky back to life. I can’t say how it compares to the original live-action version, but as a Burton animated feature it’s pretty good, though it’s not easy to watch if you’ve ever lost a pet. On the downside, some of the key characters are pretty weak, to include the main character Victor. That said, I like that practically every other kid in the film is a mad scientist with a foreign accent, and the various monster-film homages are good fun.
ParaNorman
And this one is about a boy who can see ghosts and lives in a town where a witch reputedly put a curse on the town – which suddenly comes to pass. It goes for more pathos than you’d expect from an animated film aimed at younger audiences, and some of the homages to classic horror films are welcome (although the debt to Selick/Burton is a bit too obvious). But overall it never quite strikes the right balance between dark humor and Norman’s loneliness, so it felt pretty uneven to me.
The Pirates! Band Of Misfits
Aardman Animation film of silly pirates who team up with Charles Darwin to win a science award and end up fighting Queen Victoria. Literally. I should have liked this, but I ended up being disappointed – probably because I’d already read the book, which was Pythonesque silliness, while the film goes for character development, which might be necessary in a film format, but it’s nowhere near as funny. It’s actually not bad, but I liked the book much, much more.
Yo ho ho,
This is dF
Well, I've watched them, and I have opinions and crap. So ...
Frankenweenie
Tim Burton remakes and expands his early short film of a boy who uses Frankenstein science to bring his dead dog Sparky back to life. I can’t say how it compares to the original live-action version, but as a Burton animated feature it’s pretty good, though it’s not easy to watch if you’ve ever lost a pet. On the downside, some of the key characters are pretty weak, to include the main character Victor. That said, I like that practically every other kid in the film is a mad scientist with a foreign accent, and the various monster-film homages are good fun.
ParaNorman
And this one is about a boy who can see ghosts and lives in a town where a witch reputedly put a curse on the town – which suddenly comes to pass. It goes for more pathos than you’d expect from an animated film aimed at younger audiences, and some of the homages to classic horror films are welcome (although the debt to Selick/Burton is a bit too obvious). But overall it never quite strikes the right balance between dark humor and Norman’s loneliness, so it felt pretty uneven to me.
The Pirates! Band Of Misfits
Aardman Animation film of silly pirates who team up with Charles Darwin to win a science award and end up fighting Queen Victoria. Literally. I should have liked this, but I ended up being disappointed – probably because I’d already read the book, which was Pythonesque silliness, while the film goes for character development, which might be necessary in a film format, but it’s nowhere near as funny. It’s actually not bad, but I liked the book much, much more.
Yo ho ho,
This is dF
