I can’t tell you how many times in the last 17 years I’ve been thrilled to see an insanely cool trailer for a movie only to have my expectations shattered by seeing Tim Burton’s name attached to the movie. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Tim Burton. He’s been responsible for a few movies that I love, but I generally view his involvement in a movie as a curse rather than a benefit. I can pinpoint the exact day I came to this decision about Tim Burton. It was the night of June 19, 1992. He was leaving batman returns consciously thinking “wow, that movie was 99% style, and whatever the other 1% was, it sure had no substance.” And that formed my impression of Tim Burton’s overall record as a filmmaker and it’s a record that he tends to fall short of most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, I got some entertainment value out of several of his movies, even some he directed. But even the movies that I really enjoyed, like Edward Scissorhandshe fought mightily to give me something that would outshine the “vision” and give me something substantial.
Now you don’t have to tell me that Tim Burton loves to put his name on every project he comes up with out of the corner of his eye. I liked Nightmare Before Christmas and I heard a lot of complaints that I practically had a two-paragraph concept that was developed and made by others, but still it was Tim Burton’s dark vision that tried to push that heartwarming story into the middle of the subversive world. I can hear all you Burton lovers yelling “you just don’t get it, man.” I understand. He loves a good movie. I can understand his fans’ appreciation of his work, but just because something has a visual style and atmosphere that’s expertly done doesn’t mean there’s something in there that isn’t.
So, I admitted that Burton, after bringing me two incredibly joyous film experiences in the ’80s:beetle juice Y bat Man– I could be tarnished for the next 17 years by an incredibly bitter, basically Batman Returns. Well let me tell you that every time I come across a huge batman returns follower, they are inevitably fans of Tim Burton rather than fans of Batman or comics. I remember the first batman returns discussion I had in 1992 with a fellow student and co-worker. I thought he was completely crazy. I listened to the argument about expanding on the incredible vision of Gotham City that I had started building in the first one. The anguish…blah, blah, blah. That, for me, was the problem. I need a story there. I might even accept the movie as it is, but it still doesn’t change the fact that you can pretty much take the Batman character out of batman returns and he suffers nothing. It really has little impact on the story or plot. In fact, Michael Keaton even disappears for a third of the movie. The film even flopped as a psychological drama about the neurosis of two people.
Okay, I guess I have to talk about 9. Yes, I was immediately disappointed when I saw Burton’s name among half a dozen other producers. But the movie looked great in the trailers. It’s probably the first associated Tim Burton project I’ve really wanted to see in a dozen years. So I gave it a try.
First, even for a week-long overnight excursion, I had a bad feeling from “word of mouth” about 9 entering the cinema The first trailer had just started and no one was in the theater. For the record, this is the first time I’ve walked into a theater after the lights went out and not seen anyone else there since a weeknight show of the excellent and underappreciated Fast change with Bill Murray, Gina Davis and Randy Quaid in 1990. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s a brilliant, devastatingly funny piece of work – Netflix full speed if you haven’t seen it.
In any case, this 7:20 pm 9 screening was empty. Eventually, there was an additional customer who came in after the movie had started, but it wasn’t a large enough audience to keep me from putting up all the armrests, leaning back in the seats, and passing gas unapologetically during the movie. So what about the 9? It was visually bright, eye-catching and beautiful. The performances from Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau, and Christopher Plummer were excellent, basically excellent across the board. And the story, what little there is, was acceptable. Yet this short movie spends the first hour of its 80-minute runtime meandering through a dark, esoteric world with almost no identifiable frame of reference for the viewer. In my mind, classic Tim Burton in a bad way. The problem really starts for me with the lack of a solid foundation in pure fantasy or any identifiable reality.
Let’s compare that to a “Tim Burton” movie that I loved, Nightmare Before Christmas. Nightmare immediately established itself as a fantasy and established the rules and guidelines of its fantasy world early on. I was on board and shot with it from the charming story to the exceptional music. So 9 begins by giving us a brief background on the fictional world where a 1940s militaristic society reminiscent of Nazi Germany creates a Steampunk version of Skynet from the Terminator series. Man makes machines. The machines come to life by themselves. Machines destroy humanity. I can roll with it. In fact, I totally agree with that. Well, what’s left? Well, there are 9 puppets left. Turn it into 8 puppets and an Oogie Boogie puppet in the style of The Nightmare Before Christmas, only this time with half a pair of scissors tied to a rusty nail. What are these puppets? Why are? We need to know? So a little.
I tried. I really tried to roll with it. Puppets have some kind of life. Are they machines? Well, they seemed to be threatened by the remaining machines, so it’s hard to determine. Why are they alive? They really seem to be more rag dolls than mechanics. Why does my old, uncreative mind have trouble accepting this for what it is? It’s a group of puppets fighting against a group of hybrid machines, one of which seems suspiciously built by the evil Sid from Toy Story.
The problem is that the story forces us to hint again that what the purpose and origin of these puppets IS is important, so you can’t enjoy it for what it is. It’s caught in this twilight between fantasy and technological speculation and never lets you go too far either way. It never allows you to accept 100% either of the two visions of the story and after 45 minutes, although the character of 9 he was charming and endearing, I began to wonder if the mechanical dogs and pterodactyls were absorbing the mysterious life force of these puppets or not. I just wanted the story to go somewhere. Admittedly, it does, in a hurry, in the short, rushed third act where all of these tech bits and symbols suddenly become very important even though the end credits roll without adequately explaining any of it. It’s a huge slap in the face for the audience. Just accept that this piece of metal does this and means this and this thing does this when it’s placed there and the cold, heartless, soulless machines have some unexplained ability or need to suck the souls out of these rag dolls.
Better yet, let’s turn the whole thing into a cross between a ghost story and a fundamentalist religious tale to wrap it all up. So basically we have a cheesy 1940s post-apocalyptic crossover between Raggedy-Ann, Christian mythology, and the end of return of the jedi. I’d say it’s all kind of a big hodgepodge, except there aren’t even enough substantive story pieces to make it too big of a mess. It’s not horrible, but it’s not very good. Moderately entertaining and endlessly unsatisfying, it’s only made bearable by a stunning visual style, entertaining performances, and some witty sequences that lead to a conclusion that will have even the most spiritual and lovesick of us cringing with cheese-shaming. -factor. Hey, it IS classic Tim Burton.
That’s the end of my review, but for the record, I loved Ed Wood. Probably Burton’s best since the ’80s, and Michael Keaton remains hands down the best Batman on screen (not to mention the standout Beetlejuice).