Burton's most touching piece - a dark and creative fairytale

Rating: 9/10 (15 November 2008)

Edward (Depp), born with scissors for hands, is brought into the local village and becomes the talk of the town.
God bless Tim Burton. Who in their right minds would take a fairy tale and include a man with scissors for hands? Burton's sheer strangeness continues after his beautiful Beetlejuice and Batman in this darkly colourful fantasy drama and throws the fairytale convention out of the window. Burton is an inspiration to the film industry, a man who does everything differently and there is no one else out there like him, and his finally cut creation, inspired by one of his own drawings, is a sentimental spark in his collection, his most touching to date.
For those fairytale lovers out there don't worry. This 1990 picture follows the convention of an outsider trying to make it in a land of troubles and difference, also including a beautiful girl and a touching if slightly obvious love story.
Like many Burton films he gives us a wonderful imaginative other world.
The oppositions encoded into this drama are fantastic. From the cold hearted dark home of Edward's to the unbelievably organised and colourful suburban town below, Burton's imagination allows viewers to see two opposite worlds living next door to each other.
These settings are exquisite in establishing the characters. The similar styled houses are those tidy and sophisticated homes you expect the rich and posh to live and sure enough all the middle aged gossip loving women live next door to one another. Their tidiness and appearances create that stereotypical shallow middle aged woman that shapes the story in so many ways.
The darkness of Edward's home is brought to life through the cold machinery. The inventor's house is a dark walled, miserable and negative creation and marks the quietness and shyness of central character Edward.
Who would believable Captain Jack Sparrow and Edward are portrayed by the same actor? You see Jack's cockiness provoking Elizabeth Swan with his quiet ruthlessness, and then you see Edward hiding his face from Kim with his Scissorhands. How Depp was never nominated for as Oscar for this performance will rage on until the end of time. Words cannot describe how he makes this character.
Good support is given by Ryder, West, hall and beautiful protagonist Joyce is created by Kathy Baker's ultimate fake charm.
Burton has waved his wand again to cast a dark and imaginative spell over the conventional fairytale and turned it into a bubbling dark and touching fantasy