Disney movie in disguise.

Rating: 2/10 (1 February 2008)

I should love this movie. I've enjoyed almost all Tim Burton films I've ever seen, and this is really more of the same, right? But... It's so insipid. Maybe I'M the one getting boring, maybe Tim Burton is losing it, who knows. Fact of the matter is that this movies made one thing painfully clear to me. Tim Burton is a director of edgeless mainstream movies if I ever saw one. Sure, there's blood, and people with black hair, and sort of crooked set designs, but it's concocted to fit a perfect formula, just like any blockbuster studio movie, and it doesn't seem to have the slightest intention of ever challenging that formula. No hint of anything truly disturbing, truly gritty, truly weird, or truly anything at all. Just a perfectly slick, formulaic, safe movie for a safe audience.
I enjoy mainstream movies a lot, all they have to do is pretend to have substance and edge, and I'm willing to forgive so many flaws. But I don't think Burton ever considered challenging himself. Which to my mind makes him a very boring artist. I'm sure he's a very free spirited film maker, who makes his movies just the way he likes them, and how lovely and genuine of him that is. I'm sure Michael Bay makes movies just the way he likes them too. Doesn't make it interesting.