Journey to the center of your mind.

Rating: 7/10 (14 April 2004)

Big Fish is a pretty incredible story that, more than anything else, makes me wonder if this is how director Tim Burton viewed the world as a child. Judging by the atmosphere of his other films, I would guess that young Burton had a more wild imagination than most. And, it made for some fine films.
The movie starts out with one too many flashbacks in the first few minutes as Will is going to tell you (in too many words) that his father always told him storys, and that these are the stories you will see as he told them to him. But, after those few minutes, things work out smoothly once the audience is able to get one track about what's going on.

Will Bloom (Billy Crudup) as a boy, enjoyed his father's (Albert Finney) remarkable tall tales about himself as a bold, adventurous young man (Ewan McGregor). But, Will, later in life, is tired of hearing the stories repeated at every occassion as his father gladly orates to eager audiences the wild stories. As Will explains, "The thing about icebergs in that you only see 10% of them. The other 90% are under water." He thinks that his father's stories only reveal to him, 10 percent of who his father is. And as he is visiting his father who is dying of cancer, Will pleads with him to tell him some facts as he wants to share the legacy of his father with his own child, whom his wife is expecting. But as his father insists, these tall tales are anything but fiction, and are quite revealing of the true Edward Bloom. As the story goes along, the things we think to be fact and fiction are not always so.
This is especially a great movie for young kids. The movie is quite cartoonish in appearance, kind of like the live-action cartoonish atmosphere that Blake Edwards was able to achieve in 'The Great Race,' which aids in carrying you away to the reality of Edward Bloom.
Edward Bloom (both Finney and McGregor) narrates the various comical situations he encounters in his travels as the 'Big Fish' who outgrows many environments (and thus his reason for always embarking on different, larger adventures). It is like Alice wondering through the looking glass, or Dorothy travelling to see the Wizard, as each of young Edward Bloom's always involve something incredible, and whatever seems least likely, should always be expected. Big Fish is a fantastic rendition of a modern Tall Tales.

I was a little disappointed in that the movie seems to be missing that particularly magic Burton 'umpf' that was always present in his earlier films (pre-Planet of the Apes). Something so rich and so uniquely Burton, I just can't seem to figure out what's missing or why. I think part of it has to do with the intermitten reverting back to reality of old man Edward Bloom (Finney) and his interactions with his family. Perhaps it breaks up the dreamy world of the tall tales of young Edward Bloom. I'm not sure about that yet.
But otherwise, it is was a wonderful idea and turned out to be a quite a remarkable undertaking, with Albert Finney and Ewan McGregor, who are really the major stars of the production, giving fine performances.