Nice idea, but poorly executed.

Rating: 5/10 (8 September 2002)

Jack Skellington is the King of Halloween Town. He reminds me of a cross of The Neverhood's Klaymen and Skullmonkeys'... well, skullmonkeys. Mr. Skellington has a great voice, too. He's tall and thin, just what all women want in a guy.
And atop his shoulders is a skull.
To put it plainly, Jack Skellington is really cool. His voice actor, Chris Sarandon (The Princess Bride's Prince Humperdinck) is marvelous. His singing actor, Danny Elfman, is one of my favorite composers.
But this review is not about Jack Skellington. No, unfortunately, I have to talk about the movie as well. Spoilers may arise. If they do, forgive me.
I enjoyed the concept of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Jack Skellington is bored with Halloween and wants to try something new. He stumbles into Christmas Town (and sings the best song in the movie... I'm guessing it is titled "What's This?" but I could be wrong), where he finds strange, yet not so frightening ideas. This sparks a new motive for Jack--improve Christmas!
Now, from here on out, there are SO many things this movie could do. Yet it doesn't do much with it. For most of the film we see them preparing for Christmas and, to be quite honest, it gets rather boring. The clay is really fun to look at but it's not enough to keep one interested. The movie doesn't have enough story. The plot is great, yes, but the actual events could have been better.
The climax is pretty exciting, what with Jack facing Oogie Boogie (is that his name?) and all. But that was hardly enough! The confrontation was very short. It was intense for the few seconds it occurred, but was like Attack of the Clones' climax. Cut way too short.
I found the characters creepy and frightening--my stomach churned at the sight of some of them. Greg Proops, marvelous actor in Whose Line is it Anyway?, is in there somewhere, but I couldn't hear is voice. Pity. He wasn't in it enough.
I'd say that The Nightmare Before Christmas is excellent and very enjoyable, but I can't. I'd love to, but I can't. The singing was tiresome (except for that one song I mentioned) and the story too shallow. I'm going to say it was fair, but not one to drool over. Not awful, but not all that great, either.
Although I would suggest it. It's nice to see once or maybe even twice.