A Guy Named Renfield

This is one of my wife's favorite movies. She has always been enamored of the film. She has designed and worn award-winning costumes based on Jack and Sally. I'm pretty sure we have the soundtrack somewhere. We have gone to see it every time it has been re-released in the theaters. Due to the subject matter, that happens on a fairly regular basis much to my wife's delight. With the new wrinkle of the 3-D format, I'll be interested to see if theaters continue to show it around the holidays. Will they still be able to get the old version, or will they have to be prepared to invest in the funky glasses for the new version?

The 3-D is neat. It's not spectacular, which is not surprising since the movie wasn't originally filmed to take advantage of that format. Tim Burton probably would have interjected quite a bit of neat stuff if he had any inkling this was on the horizon when he made it. The neatest thing done with the effect is in the bit at the beginning when they advertise their new “we can run any film through our 3-D computer and make it look this cool” process. Beyond that it does make the film look neat, but by the end you really get used to it and barely notice.

Myself, I've never been a big fan of the film. I like the premise and story well enough; Sally's infatuation with Jack is wonderful to watch. Sally is a wonderfully imagined and crafted character and she brings life to every scene she's in. The songs and designs are where the film leaves me underwhelmed. Any fan of Tim Burton knows that you go to his films so you can see how wacky he designed everything. There is a lot of eye candy in this one as should be expected, but as with all his designs it's big on flash but short on detail. I'd like to see more done with the designs and characters in the background, but the camera rarely stays in one place long enough to show off anything. I've also never been able to figure out why the boogeyman is portrayed as an obsessive-compulsive gambler or what the heck that has to do with Halloween. The songs are really what lose me, though. I like Danny Elfman as a composer. His scores in every Tim Burton flick are always wonderful pieces. Unfortunately, these are songs that are actually sung, and they are all clunky, wandering and disruptive. Every time he has Jack sing about being “The Pumpkin King” I am reminded of Alfalfa singing “The Barber of Seville”.

It did start off with “Knick Knack”, one of Pixar's early animated shorts about a frustrated snowman in a snow globe. It's a hoot no matter what format it's in. I kind of wondered why they didn't create a new short to run with the movie. I figured a new short would attract people who would want to see that and stay for the film, but I guess it was cheaper to run an old stand-by through the 3-D computer than create a new one. I don't see this release generating a huge amount of revenue, but given the cost overhead and Disney's recent lack of creativity, I predict a trend...