Burton's most personal masterpiece but you still have to forgive his eccentricities

Rating: 10/10 (20 April 2018)

This was one I had a lot of love for as a kid and it always stayed with me. Upon revisiting it I was delighted to see that a lot of the magic still is there. It really is the movie that gets the essence of Burton and his themes of an isolated dreamer. The movie still looks phenomenal and it isn't just the perfect set design. It should be studied as a example of using color and contrast to jarringly create a weird world. I remembered a lot of the scenes in the haunted mansion and laboratory but I forgot how delightful it was when the weird goth Edward was brought into the overwhelming loud suburbia with the houses and shopping centers of bright shades of pink.
It is Burton creating an allegory for himself and his lack of subtlety has always sort of been a challenge for him in developing a narrative and characters to match the artistic vision. When viewed as a sort of autobiographical fairy tale it sort of comes off as self-indulgent at it's worst moments. There are too many moments of Edward being misunderstood as a monster. The bible thumping neighbor is way too much.
But you sort of have to forgive it because like I said that loudness has always been Burton's storytelling achillies. As a visual fairy tale 'Edward Scissorhands' is a masterpiece. The music and look of the film alone would have done that without any dialogue.