Metacritic reviews

It says something, then, that Burton's best, most enjoyable, and most emotionally resonate film in years is actually an adaptation of one of his very first projects: Frankenweenie.

This magnificent stop-motion cartoon is alive - "it's alive! - with laughs and heart.

Burton's id explodes onto the screen with a plethora of demonic mutated critters.

Burton's finest, freshest film in ages is a welcome homecoming. You'd call it patchwork pastiche, if it weren't so zapped with energy, feeling and imagination. It's alive!

Frankenweenie, scripted by John August, and based on a screenplay by Lenny Ripps from Burton's original story, is tight and brief, hitting all the marks you'd expect from an animated kid's film, and enlivened by Burton's visual style. The man should make more small movies like this one.

This beautifully designed canine-resurrection saga feels, somewhat fittingly, stitched together from stray narrative parts, but nonetheless evinces a level of discipline and artistic coherence missing from the director's recent live-action efforts.

Though the tale demands a darker outcome, the director disappointingly goes the Mouse House happy-ending route with a reprise of the original short film's finale - one that somehow plays with even more cringeworthy sentimentality.

There's no question it looks fantastic...As for the story, well, much like the original Frankenstein's monster, it is a haphazard assemblage of well-aged source materials jolted back to life with new technology, but it isn't quite as sophisticated as one might hope.

It is nonetheless imaginative in a highly familiar and ultimately tedious way.

Tim Burton's sense of playfulness feels forced throughout, and as the film progresses, any humor or inventiveness takes a backseat to tumultuous set pieces that reference Frankenstein.