Review Date:
Director: Tim Burton
Writer: John August
Producers: Richard Zanuck, Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen
Actors:
Ewan McGregor Albert Finney Jessica Lange |
The bits that I liked best about the picture were its tall tales though, as presented by the sturdy Albert Finney to his son Billy Crudup. Almost every single yarn was a fun one to hear and see presented on the big screen (see Giants, Two-Headed Asian Singers, Werewolves!) As the childhood stories built to the more adult ones, the deeper nature of their meaning also grew, as did the imagination of the man telling them. The entire film has a lot more symbolism than I picked up on during my first viewing, but you don’t need to connect all those dots in order to enjoy the movie. The film’s greatest downside, in my opinion, was its predictability of conclusion, which I guessed about as soon as the movie started, as well as its freakish similarity to another such child-to-adult “fairy-tale” that won a few Oscars back in 1994, called FORREST GUMP. I’m not even talking about the basic outline of a small-town boy with a heavy Southern accent heading out into the world and tumbling into all kinds of bizarre adventures. I’m talking about specifics too, including his call to war, his deathbed scene with a parent, his lover named Jenny, the advice he offers a friend who gets rich from it and so on and yes…so forth. Very, very eerie. It was almost to a point that I expected the lead character to start playing ping-pong and shake hands with a President, but the film obviously has many differences as well, including its greater emphasis on the surreal, the flighty, the magical and the Burton (all fans of the visionary will sense him all around) In the end, the film plays sincerely, moves at a nice pace, doesn’t outstay its welcome and offers several funny moments, intertwined with some emotional and entertaining ones. The film didn’t move or surprise me per se, but it’s definitely a solid addition to Mr. Burton’s impressive resume and should fulfill all those who adore him.
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