Tim Burton on steroids

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2000)

What do you get when you give Tim Burton the chance to let his imagination run wild without the limitations of real-life shooting and setbuilding etc.
The Night Before Christmas is the answer.
Everything in this movie looks absolutely stunning. Tim Burton had a field day designing this incredibly handsome puppet movie. 'Cause that's what it is, if you hadn't noticed this before. The mistake is easily made because the characters move so fluently that after a while you forget you are watching stop-motion animation.
The story is about the king of Halloweentown, Jack Skellington who is tired of doing the same thing each year after year after year. Scaring people doesn't fulfill his desires anymore and he wants out. His wishes are met and he finds a portal in the middle of the woods with access to the various towns of the holidays, Easter, Thanksgiving, St. Patricks Day, and of course Christmas. He enters the portal and is thrown into the serene and happy world of Christmas Town. Here he first experiences what the world could be like when people are jolly and happy. He wants this, too, and he decides to steal Christmas and make this his new job.
That's where everything goes wrong, the people in Halloweentown cannot understand what Christmas stands for, and they give a twist to Christmas that the children in the world will not soon forget. Jack kidnaps Sandy Claws (Santa Claus) and poses as the New Santa. One girl has a premonition that everything is going to go wrong, Sally tries to convince Jack that he should call the whole adventure off, to no avail. The rest is history...
The art direction is absolutely stunning, it will take several viewings to grasp all the details in the scenes. The songs are beautiful, especially the ones by Jack (voice of composer Danny Elfman himself).
The real treat in this are the supporting cast, these are so funny and well-done that they almost steal the show.
One problem: The relationship between Sally and Jack is not worked out properly to my idea, this could have gotten a little bit more attention in the script. And how did Sally know that Santa was imprisoned by the Boogie Man?
Apart from these minor setbacks, this is a movie to cherish on i.e. DVD and watch over and over and over and over. It is up there in the ranks of Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, and James and the Giant Peach (Selicks other stop-motion flick)
9/10