May 07, 2004

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Publication Date: Friday, May 07, 2004

Ready to Rent

Columbia/Tri-Star Home Video VHS & DVD 2 hrs 5 mins Director: Tim Burton

Tim Burton's "Big Fish" is a fascinating mess of a film that exemplifies the modern notion that style as substance is the new form of melodrama. Burton, whose career peaked with the 1994's "Ed Wood" (check it out for Johnny Depp's best performance), has been in steady decline ever since, churning out empty and boring puppet shows that embody, at best, Burton's unique stylization. Burton's main problem is one-note scripts that embellish his personal shtick of portraying his characters as human dolls with only their physiognomy to clue us in on their souls. "Big Fish" was touted as Burton's "grown up" movie to counteract his stigma as an empty fantasist and, although it does have some touching moments, it falls back upon episodic and melodramatic tales to sell itself as being deep. The film revolves around the age-old parental estrangement theme, but takes it to a strangely whinier level, one that I think is a first in film.

Will Bloom (Billy Crudup - the most cardboard actor in films today) has not spoken to his (in my opinion) sweet and sensual father, Edward Bloom (Albert Finney, always irreproachable) in three years because he feels that Edward's tall tales of his life have created a gap in trust between the two. You see, Edward loves to tell fantastical tales of the young Edward (played by Ewan McGregor) whenever the situation arises, which seems like all the time. These include: an encounter with a prophesying witch; the befriending of a giant that terrorizes the countryside; the discovery of a ghost town frozen in perfection; werewolves; and the catching of the mother of all catfish. It is in this allegory of capturing the "big fish" of the title that the film gains some pop resonance due to its mythic, metaphorical payoff.

The setting of this myth, pop culture from the 1950s and '60s, weaves Burton back into his comfortable territory and deflates the emotional core that the film cannot stand upon. He, along with novelist Daniel Wallace, tried to channel the spirit of Ray Bradbury's "October Country" but filtered it through clichˇ movie-of-the-week emotions. There are some odd moments, however, that only Burton could create, which include a secret mission into a communist USO show, and a rainstorm of Biblical proportions that seems to call a siren from the deep. What I also recommend is cinematographer Phillippe Rousselot's beautiful work. Rousselot, with his soft, natural light and intense palette seems to be the perfect projector for Tim Burton's imagination because he understands the contrasts of a cartoonist's eye. The audience finds, within Rousselot's stylings on "Big Fish," a snack - what little substance there is. @reviewertag:-Joe Ramirez

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