Batman (1989)

I saw Tim Burton’s highly anticipated “Batman” on opening night, in Philadelphia. I loved it, despite the early warning of Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Damn it, Jack Nicholson was in it and I had discovered Jack in “Shining” and “Chinatown,” far too young. The movie is dark, violent, and -– after recently watching a series of 1940s “Batman” serials on TCM that blazed dark -– I have rediscovered, it’s fuckin’ crazy inspiring. Groundbreaking. A mash-up of 80s action and 50s film noir, shot with grunge. Yeah, Batman has been Rambo’d up, and Joker’s all mafia, but its daring original entertainment, Burton at near career high. Anton Furst’s Gotham City –- built at Pinewood -– is among the greatest film sets ever. It astounds. B+

Frankenweenie (2012)

I welcomed the Tim Burton-directed stop-motion “Frankenweenie” with a wide smile of spooked childlike wonder. For years now, Burton has been missing as a filmmaker. He has made many movies -– “Planet of the Apes” and “Dark Shadows” -- but none steeped in the dark satire and deep loneliness he displayed in “Edward Scissorhands.” This harkens back to early Burton, and is a remake of his infamous 1984 live-action short, ingenuously reimagined. Young Victor Frankenstein is a loner whose best friend is Sparky, his pet dog. Victor pops a homerun during a parent-forced youth baseball outing. Sparky runs for the ball, and is fatally hit by a car. Victor is devastated, and soon goes the way of his namesake by bringing Sparky back to life via an electric storm and a lab that is every bit a grade-school salute to James Whale. What comes next is where Burton flies high: Victor’s spooky classmates each has a dead pet they want to see given new life, and this freak show takes off as hilarious and sly introduction of monster mash-ups for the quirky young. Shot in black-and-white, this is the Burton I love. A

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

Abe Lincoln is hot in Hollywood. The 16^th prez stars in two big films this year. Suck it, Spider-Man. Don’t cheer yet, historians. “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” is a mash-up of history (as in U.S.) and Stoker (as in Bram) with an ax-wielding, head-chomping hero in a stove-pipe hat killin’ vamps. Written by the book’s author, Seth Grahame-Smith, and directed by Timor Bekmanbetov (“Wanted”) with master of ironic goth horror Tim Burton as producer, “AL:VH” ought to be the funniest, bloodiest blast of 2012, especially with our over-the-top election year, but it’s a dud. I dig the joke of ol’ honest Abe (Broadway vet Benjamin Walker) as a badass out for blood, but the film suggests with grim faux seriousness the South used slavery as a guise, with Africans as food a’plenty for Dixie vamps. Stick that joke on the Holocaust and try and laugh. But that’s a side issue. This is an ugly, cheap-looking film with CGI effects barely out of test stage, including a foot chase through a horse stampede and a train ride from hell so ineptly staged I thought this flick an episode of “Punk’d.” On the viewer. Talk about a head shot. C-

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

“Sleepy Hollow” is perfect Tim Burton id: Gloriously dark atmosphere spiked with a wicked sense of humor, misfit characters that can only be saved by love, surreal violence, and a god-awful story with stabs of brilliance, but mostly ugly exposition. Burton and screenwriters Andrew Kevin Walker and (un-credited) Tom Stoppard take the Irving story and dump the school teacher for a NYC police constable (Johnny Depp, brilliantly good) advocating science forensics to his detriment in an age -– 1799 -– drunk on religion. Crane is sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of lobbed-off heads by a demonic man on a horse, minus his own head, and the latter is no joke, because this is Burton, and magic, evil, and trees of death puking blood abound. Crane’s arrival –- filmed by Emmanuel Lubezki, scored by Danny Elfman, with a set from purgatory –- is marvelous, fused with old Hammer Films and 1931’s classic “Frankenstein.” Brilliant: Depp plays Crane as a heinous wus, using a teenage boy as a human shield. Weak: Huge story errors and a conspiracy-heavy reveal that defies reason. Christopher Walken plays the horseman, growling with devotion to Burton’s majestic dark yearnings. I miss this Burton. B

Dark Shadows (2012)

Are there two men more likely soul mates than actor Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton? Can there be any doubt these guys make their films first for each other, us second. “Dark Shadows” is a prime example: A supernatural off-kilter oddball of cinema, and a mash letter/ homage to a cult hit TV series that Depp and Burton adored 40 years ago. If it only worked, if only the film had an air about it more substantial than the feeling Depp and Burton are really saying, “You need to see this show!” Well, why not the movie? 

The story: Barnabas Collins is the son of a wealthy fishing magnate in 1760s America who spurns his housemaid f-buddy (Eva Green) for his true love Josette (Bella Heathcote) – to eternal punishment, for the angry lady, Angelique, is hell in heels, a witch with an endless temper. She kills Barnabas’ family and his true love, and then makes him a vampire, cursed for eternity, before locking his ass in a coffin for 196 years. Ouch. Rocket to 1972, and a newly released Barnabas finds himself in the timeline of Nixon, Karen Carpenter, and lava lamps. Angelique awaits, rich and powerful, lording over the Collins heirs (led by Michele Pfeiffer, wonderfully sour). 

It’s all ripe for satire, culture jokes and hippie-munching humor, and we get all that, but we don’t get enough of the tragic romance, the eternal desire Barnabus has for his lost love, Josette, and her 1972 reincarnation, Victoria. Yes, there’s a reincarnation. During the climatic “Death Becomes Her”-riffing battle that $100 million budgets can buy, I barely noticed, and the film barely acknowledges, the long absences of the lady who unwittingly started it all. Oh, wait, there she is! At the end! Sigh. 

Depp – once again in chalky white makeup and creepy black wig, his signature Burton look -- is perfect in the lead role of Barnabas, slowly rolling his fangs around every word, gesture and arched eyebrow. He makes his vamp into a gentleman in line with the great dapper vampire Christopher Lee (who has a cameo), but one vexed by Eggo waffles and Steve Miller Band song lyrics. 

A huge part of me wished Burton, Depp, and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (author of “Pride, Prejudice and Zombies”) had gone for a grisly, out-of-control hard R, ala “Sleepy Hollow,” a far darker comedy than this wink-wink lightweight romp can provide in a PG-13. Among the missed opportunities – besides sweet buckets of blood – is a cameo by ’70s shock rocker Alice Cooper, who Barnabas calls “the ugliest woman I never met.” Heh. Even the jokes are lodged in the 1970s. 

End note: I miss the Burton of “Beetlejuice” And “Edward Scissorhands.” Yeah, the special effects were (purposefully) cheap, but, damn, I left fulfilled with cinematic glory. The original show was all about cheapness, apparently, but this film spared no expense. For sets and makeup and special effects. Dime store story, though. Not Dark enough. B-

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Tim Burton films always have wild visuals to make any film fan stare in awe, as is the case with “Alice in Wonderland,” his take on the famous Lewis Carroll story of a girl lost in a strange world that only an opium habit could fuel. Burton + Carroll: It’s a marriage made in cinema heaven. But this take isn’t about young Alice’s trip down the rabbit hole. No. It’s about angst-filled teen Alice (Mia Wasikowska) re-falling down the rabbit hole to re-meet Rabbit, the Dweedle twins, the cat … you get the point. Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter, whacked hair and crazy colored Elijah Wood eyes. Helena Bonham Carter is the Queen of Hearts, a head big enough to block sunlight. Anne Hathaway is the White Queen, who walks around with her hands up in the air. Um, why exactly? It’s all so much, and yet so little. There is no glistening-eye, heart-piercing wonder here, as in film gods “Beatlejuice” and “Edward Scissorhands.” Danny Elfman provides the film’s best asset, a music score to die for, and paint and draw and write and dream by. B-