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Don’t be afraid of the bark

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Frankenweenie
DIRECTED BY: Tim Burton
VOICES: Charlie Tahan, Martin Landau, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Winona Ryder
CERT: PG

Frankenweenie is an expanded take on a live-action short film that Tim Burton made in 1984, when he was working as an animator for Disney. His bosses considered the movie to be a tad on the dark side and Burton got fired for his troubles. Though the studio was only too happy to release the film later, after their former employee’s name went on to hit the big lights.

 

Now Burton is back in the Disney fold, giving the old tale another run around the block, this time in stop-motion animation and 3D, a special joy for those of us with gammy eyesight to begin with.
Frankenweenie plays like a cross between Frankenstein and Pet Cemetery, an idea that raises the image of Mary Shelley and Stephen King collaborating on a children’s story via Ouija board. Which itself has the makings of an excellent film, royalties from which I will pursue with extreme prejudice, just so you know.

It’s the story of young Victor Frankenstein (Tahan), a lonely suburban misfit, something of a genius, a quiet kid who likes to be alone with his inventions. The quintessential Burton hero.

Victor’s classmates are a bit on the odd side, too. These include the towering Nassor (Short) who bears a creepy resemblance to Boris Karloff; the bug-eyed Weird Girl (O’Hara) and the moping Elsa Van Helsing (Ryder), who’s either a genuine depressive or an emo girl suffering severe symptoms of Facebook withdrawal. Then there’s that all-knowing hunchback (Atticus Shaffer) named Edgar Gore, whose name will mean nothing to the kids but will bring to mind fond memories of Marty Feldman for a different generation.

Victor’s best buddy, however, is his dog Sparky. Which is sad because Sparky has just taken a trip to the boneyard, the result of a badly timed chase into the street. In a world where a man can now do a parachute jump from the edge of space, there is still no progress on a Safe Cross Code for dogs. How long will this neglect continue? Because we’re not all geniuses like Victor and we don’t all have a science teacher (Martin Landau) who looks like Vincent Price, who can inspire a boy to build a contraption that will bring his dead mutt back to life. If I could pull a trick like that, I’d be walking a fair few zombies this evening.

When word gets out that old Sparky is back to his best ­ with a few added bolts and stitches ­ well, who can blame the other kids for wanting to resurrect their own dearly departed pets? Sure isn’t that what shovels and electricity were invented for.

Of course it is. If you’re looking for some decent Halloween entertainment for the children, you could do worse than this. It’s not Burton at his best (you have to go back about a bazillion years for that) and the younger ones won’t get all the old movie references. There’s still plenty here to enjoy, if you don’t have a problem exposing their minds to something a tad darker than The Little Mermaid.
Just don’t be too surprised when young Johnny turns up in the yard with Fluffy’s corpse under his arm and tells you to get out the jump leads.

Hotel Transylvania
DIRECTED BY: Genndy Tartakovsky
VOICES: Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Andy Samberg, David Spade, Kevin James, Steve
Buscemi
CERT: PG

If you and the kids prefer something a little lighter for the spooky season, then Hotel Transylvania is the one. So long as you know that, in this case at least, ‘lighter’ also means ‘blander’.

Again, it’s a bit of a mongrel movie, mixing elements of Monsters Inc with a love story straight from Twilight, minus any of the former’s genius and thankfully, without the latter’s laughable moping.

Clearly tired of the quiet life, Count Dracula (Sandler) has turned his castle into a hotel, a safe haven for the ghouls of this world, for whom humans are a source of great terror. Now everyone who’s anyone in the monster world has gathered for a party to celebrate the 118th birthday of Dracula’s daughter, Mavis (Gomez).

The Mummy (Cee Lo Green), Wolfman (Steve Buscemi), Quasimodo (Jon Lovitz) and the Invisible Man (David Spade) are among the freakish guests. Frankenstein (Kevin James) is here too but he doesn’t have a dog.

The big reunion is a blast until human backpacker Jonathan (Samber) stumbles upon the castle, freaking out its illustrious proprietor. Worse still, Mavis takes a shine to the boy, whose arrival doesn’t do much to ease her longing to flee the nest, the itchy feet that have already driven a wedge between the girl and her undead daddy.

It’s a fine idea for a film, though the end result won’t go down as an animated classic. The vocal cast are in great form but it could have done with a sharper script, ­ a writer who might have milked the real comedy rather than going for the broader gags, the lazy jokes, the PG equivalent of what Sandler and his crew normally get up to. Peter Baynham (Borat) and Robert Smigel (former Conan and SNL writer) should have done better than that.

Still, it’s an entertaining enough yarn for the youngsters and their parents might even have a few laughs.

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