A great achievement but could had been way more entertaining.

Rating: 7/10 (16 October 2005)

"The Nightmare Before Christmas" is a perfectly professionally made movie with almost flawless looking stop-motion animation. However as entertainment this movie is flawed, due to its simple story and a pace that is a bit too fast for the movie.
"The Nightmare Before Christmas" has some highly fun and amusing characters in it and that also is the strongest thing of the movie. Jack Skellington is a nice and memorable main character but it is the Mayor that mostly steals the show in this movie. The movie is filled with tons of odd looking- and acting monstrous characters. Oogie Boogie is a cool villain but he unfortunately doesn't get an awful lot to do in this movie. The characters are fun but the movie itself isn't halve as much as fun. There are just a few laughs in it and in general the movie is simply too short. Because the movie is so short all of the scene's come and go too fast after each other. The story is told too fast and because of that things aren't always build up nicely or correctly. Because of this there also are some plot holes in the movie. The movie should had been maybe at least 10-15 minutes longer. It makes "The Nightmare Before Christmas" a bit of a movie that is most certainly not bad but has many missed opportunities in it.
Even though the movie isn't directed by Tim Burton himself, it still has 'Tim Burton' written all over it. The visual style and characters are definitely Burton material. There is plenty to enjoy for his fans, in this movie. The music and songs by Danny Elfman are also what gives this movie a 'Burton' kind of feeling and atmosphere. The music by Elfman is good and the songs, even though no Oscar material, are enjoyable and quite memorable as well.
It certainly is a professionally made and good looking movie but the story could had used some more work and the movie should had been longer, to build up the scene's and characters better. It still is an enjoyable movie to watch but it could and should had been way more entertaining.
7/10
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