r/discussingfilm

I had only ever seen his stop motion films and Wednesday in the previous years of my life. So I watched literally one Burton movie a day until I saw every Tim Burton movie and here’s all my thoughts on the films and then on his career overall (did not watch any of his shorts or anything so those will not be included here)

Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure - I borderline hated this. I know a lot of people love Pee-Wee and this movie but I found the character so weird and so disturbing and didn’t like him at all. He creeped me out and I found very few of the jokes to be funny. So fair to say Pee-Wee is not my style of humor. The moments where you could feel Burton let his Burton out (i.e. large Marge) were the best and most enjoyable of the film. If you love this movie, more power to you.

Beetlejuice - Um, yes please. Literally was so happy knowing there was a second one after watching this. The music is so brilliant and bouncy and fun and the whole gothic circus aesthetic in a comedy, which I now of course know is Burton’s whole thing, really works from the jump here. The bit in the middle where Michael Keaton is clearly just riffing and having a blast playing that character is just about the funniest 15 mins I had seen in a very long time. This was a joy. A great 80s comedy from someone who had a clear grasp on what his whole “thing” was from the jump.

Batman - I always liked Batman before, this is the first time I ever LOVED Batman. What a fun and exciting movie. I don’t know what to even say about Jack Nicholson because I’m sure it’s all been said before but hands down my favorite version of the Joker I’ve ever seen (Ledger & Phoenix obviously still legends in their own way). Also think it was actually somehow a really good decision to make Joker more or less the lead of the movie. Like maybe I’m crazy but it felt like Batman was barely in it, but when he was it was just the coolest thing ever. Also Michael Keaton is the best Batman actor hands down the only one who made Bruce Wayne seem even remotely interesting to me. Just a good fun cheesy action movie with the right amount of darkness and weirdness to it. My favorite superhero movie now.

Edward Scissorhands - This is the first one that feels like Burton completely un-burdened. The previous three movies felt like he was lending what he does to visions that could have in theory existed without the Burton-ism he put into them. This one from the ground up you can’t even imagine it without him. The Burton aesthetic is the canvas, not just a brushstroke. That being said, I found it just a little bit weird for my taste. Not too weird, I still enjoyed watching it as a well made movie. I just felt kind of detached and like I couldn’t really relate to anybody or anything. Like I didn’t find the romance all that romantic. But the sense of tragedy that he was going for at the end landed decently enough. Also I’m trying to cast myself back to a time when you wouldn’t just assume Johnny Depp is a makeup wearing weirdo and think how awesome it must have been to see your favorite teen-idol play such a different and unusual kind of role. The real beginning of a great career for him. But all in all I would say the film is an over all win for Burton’s career while not being one of his best (I wrote each of these reviews when I watched them. Now chiming in after having seen them all, I get this film more now than I did at first. Still not like my favorite or anything but I appreciate it more as one of Burton’s essentials)

Batman Returns - Well holy crap. I have conflicted opinions about this and was amazed to see how beloved this is online because I would have assumed this was a pretty controversial movie. I thought this would be like the first movie but it is remarkably mean spirited and horrific at times. Much much darker than the first movie. Even less Batman and he seems less amazing when he’s on screen than he did in the first one. Not that he isn’t great. Michael Keaton is still the goat. Him walking through the gunfire at the press conference is incredible. But Batman seems less incredible and more like necessary, if that makes sense? Like in the first one it was like “whoa, this guy dresses up and fights crime, it’s so new and amazing”. In this one it felt more like “Batman is here and everyone knows it and accepts it and villains even exist in spite of him”. So different vibe for sure. My only frame of reference for Danny Devito before this was Always Sunny. So this was eye opening, but I think it’s a brilliant performance. Catwoman is so weird but it works in a way that you can tell a real weirdo made this. All meant as a positive lol. Basically all the things I liked about the first one have been largely replaced or changed here. But they were replaced with or changed into things I also like and find interesting. Definitely his most interesting and worthy of further rewatches for analysis I’ve seen yet.

The Nightmare Before Christmas - So now one I’ve seen before but not in many many years! I remember really enjoying this as a kid and thinking it was the ultimate “spooky movie”, meaning kinda has horror movie vibes to it but isn’t a full on horror movie. And I’m gonna get crap for this but rewatching it now I am totally underwhelmed. Like, I didn’t find it near as charming or entertaining as I thought I would. Don’t get me wrong, the designs and craftsmanship are brilliant and Henry Selick did a wonderful job bringing Burton’s world to life. But I don’t like the songs. I don’t find any of the characters likable or enjoyably unlikable. What’s This is the best part of the film hands down but the rest, as visually striking as it all is, doesn’t quite meet my nostalgia for it. Not one I will be revisiting again anytime soon. Very disappointed by this film. Hope you all still love it as much as I used to.

Ed Wood - OMG I am literally crying this is the most inspiring film I have ever seen. He loves what he does so much and he is so bad at it and somewhere in the back of his head he knows it but he never gives up and always pushes forward trying to make the best piece of art he can. A brilliant, endlessly inspiring movie with a great cast who all shows up to play ball. Should have won best picture. Hands down the best film Burton had made up to that point. I would imagine this is his masterpiece.

Mars Attacks! - Okay, I take this as a goofy and stupid victory lap after the run of successes he had up to this point. Not bad as a parody of Independence Day basically, but also hard to critique. It’s like how do you give a review of the three stooges? Even if this isn’t your sense of humor, it is a good version of the sense of humor it is. So, yeah. It’s a movie and I watched it. Nothing else intelligent to really say 😂

Sleepy Hollow - What I had been waiting for Burton to do and also what I assumed for some reason he had done a lot more of. Straight up gothic horror monster movies. And this one is spectacular. Everything about it works in my opinion. It’s legitimately creepy and scary. The horseman is terrifying and when he goes on his big rampage in the middle of the movie it is brutal and relentless. Just an epic awesome old school horror movie made by someone who understands and clearly loves this movies. This is my favorite so far alongside Ed Wood.

Planet of the Apes - Really the whole reason I wanted to watch all of these. I have never seen the older films before this one, but had seen the newer CGI Apes movies. And when I heard Burton had done one of these it sounded like such a weird fit I knew he had to be more interesting than I was giving him credit for. So I finally got to this one and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. Like is it the best movie? Absolutely not. All the Apes movies that came after this one were technically better movies and I assume at least a few of the older ones have to be better as well. And despite the distinct lack of Burtonisms throughout most of the film, I found it did have his sense of cheesy-ness to it. Not inherently a good thing, but considering the other Apes films I have seen are very self-serious dramas, it was kind of cool to see one where the characters are all larger than life and ridiculous things happen and the end is a big apes vs human battle. I thought it was cool. The other movies in this series that I’ve seen are great, but they don’t feel super fun. This movie was fun. I had fun watching Tim Roth froth with rage through his makeup. I liked it.

Big Fish - What a fun surprise! The moment when he sees his wife for the first time at the circus, time stops, and he literally pushes popcorn out of mid air to see her better is one of the single most romantic things committed to cinema. And then the whole funeral at the end was life affirming. I never expected that Burton would have made his version of Forrest Gump, but fair to say I like it more than Forrest Gump actually! Wacky, weird, fun, and heartfelt in a way so many movies wish they were.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - This was okay. Johnny Depp seems to go from weird in an enjoyable way to weird in a don’t look at me way from scene to scene. The designs (as usual) of the factory are great. All of the Oompa Loompa’s songs are brilliant. I really love the whole decades thing they do there. All the kids are really great actors, but especially Charlie and the Squirrel girl. I mean it’s a perfectly entertaining movie, just not sure if it’s one that has anything worth remembering once the credits start to role. I’m guessing this is more or less where people start measuring the “decline” of Burton’s films.

Corpse Bride - This is the movie I wanted Nightmare Before Christmas to be. I found this to be a hauntingly beautiful film. Tragic. Sad. Romantic. Hilarious. Absurd. Heartfelt. And so so so well made. I mean the art and craft of the film are breathtaking. Everyone looks so ghostly but the undead look the most alive. It’s gothic romance for the modern age done so right. I adore this film and wish there were more like it. One of his best in my opinion and very very underrated.

Sweeney Todd - Another one I have some conflicted thoughts about. On the one hand, I don’t think Tim Burton cared very much about this as a musical. Like I’m sure he loved the story, but I don’t know how much he loved the story as a musical. I mean Johnny Depp talks through about like a third of what were supposed to be sung lines. So it just feels like a movie being forced to be a musical when the key people involved don’t want it to be. That being said, this is old creepy gothic horror kind of stuff like Sleepy Hollow was. And man this movie aesthetically captures those same sort of vibes. Johnny Depp certainly fits the vision of what the character should be like in Burton’s world, just not necessarily in a musical. Helena Bonham Carter is giving it her all and making this movie as well liked as it is I think, and Alan Rickman is perfect for the film as well. A movie that succeeds more than it fails. But its failures can’t be ignored. Also is that Borat wtf?!

Alice In Wonderland - Right. I can tell this is where he officially lost a lot of people. But I enjoyed it a fair bit. It perhaps doesn’t have as much heart as it wants to or as it should. But it’s witty. The cast is all totally game. It’s a visual feast. While many I know will feel sad that this is the jump from digital to cgi (though I think Chocolate Factory had lots of cgi as well), I do think it mostly works here because Wonderland is not at any point really supposed to be presented as real. It’s more than real. It’s beyond. Alice looks and feels out of place from the things around her because she is. Just a really fun and enjoyable fantasy film, and one that is as easy to imagine Burton doing as it is to see Burton doing.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - Why did I even watch this? Burton didn’t direct this.

Dark Shadows - I see the negative reviews of this movie and I do think people missed the point. Like, this movie is a comedy. Maybe the show is just so good that it makes turning it into a comedy like this truly offensive. But I’ve never seen that show so I can only take it as it’s being presented to me. And this movie is supposed to be just a fun weird wacky comedy about a dysfunctional family and the vampire that almost kind of sort of becomes their weird uncle. Now, it’s not a particularly good comedy. But I see people online treating this like the biggest disappointment in the history of cinema. And it’s like, yeah the movie doesn’t really work but its goals and ambitions are so relatively low that it’s inoffensive. Film looks really cool. This is definitely where Depp being Depp starts to leave a little to be desired. But Eva Green brings all the energy you could want her to in this movie and is great here.

Frankenweenie- Such a cute and fun little movie. Nothing not to enjoy here. Sweet and heartfelt and beautiful to look at. As good as you would hope it would be.

Big Eyes - A nice little surprise! Burton had definitely gotten into the habit for the ten years before this film of making movies that were Burton-y because he’s Tim Burton and of course that’s what he does. And so it’s nice to see him pump the breaks a little bit and, I feel, rediscover his love of just telling good stories. It’s very well acted. Of course Amy Adams is always great and same for Christoph Waltz who is always so good at being scary without being intimidating or vice versa. It’s a film that actually has something to say not just about the people it’s about but about society at large. I think Burton really related to Margaret’s profound desire to express herself no matter how marginalized she is or what everyone else thinks. It’s a really great story for him to tell at the point in his career where things had begun to feel a bit tired and uninspired for him as an artist.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children - I guess this is Tim Burton’s foray into the marvelization of Hollywood. And it’s fine. It’s certainly better than a lot of similar films I have seen that have no sense of identity. But it definitely doesn’t have enough of Burton’s identity to make it as great as it could have been. Burton doing this story in the 90s would have been something to behold. The movie gets by very well from its cast though. Asa Butterfield is great as the lead and the audience surrogate character. Didn’t feel near as bland or boring as he could have with a worse actor. Eva Green is marvelous as Miss Peregrine. She is so beautiful and strong and charming in every scene. Just a delight for the whole movie. Ella Purnell and Lauren McCrostie also give just wonderful performances in this. So yeah, a good movie but not necessarily a good Burton movie.

Dumbo - This is the worst thing Burton has done so far. I mean there’s very little to comment on here because the film is so unremarkable. It was a bit of a chore to sit through honestly. And it felt like anyone could have made it. Why would someone as unique as Tim Burton ever have his name on this crap. Disappointed immensely.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - Perhaps the most appropriate way to end this marathon. Burton, certainly no longer at the height of his power, intentionally trying to harken back to a time when he was. And I really enjoyed this, but not sure that had to do with Burton so much as it did Michael Keaton once again clearly having the time of his life playing such a vile, disgusting, hilarious role. I mean this movie had even more laugh out loud moments than the first one, all due to Keaton’s great performance. A definite win for everyone involved and one of the better Burton movies of this back half.

So all in all Burton’s story is one of diminishing returns. His older movies worked because he had such a strange voice and style for the time and you could tell he was working really hard to prove that his voice was one that could work. And so those films have the energy we think of as Burton energy. Then he became an institution with nothing to prove. He could make the 5 worst movies of all time in a row, but that can’t undo the Batman movies or Sleepy Hollow no matter how bad they are. So it’s hard to tell how much effort he’s putting into something after a certain point or how much he’s just relying on his typical bag of tricks. But overall I would say he has made far more good movies than bad ones and he absolutely deserves the kind of success he has had. He is and forever will be a genius, even if that’s the exact reputation that keeps him proving it today.