The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

User Review

• 

  Barneyonmovies

  8 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: Tim Burton has always had an unbelievable ability to build immersive alternate worlds, but with stop-motion king Henry Selick at the helm, 'Nightmare Before Christmas,' is perhaps the greatest example of that. Every frame is spectacularly detailed, and the weight of the real objects on screen lend a tangibility you simply don't get from digital animation, or from Burton's slightly more satirical visual language.
  
  But the story all of that is broadcasting is very much the usual Tim Burton fair about an outsider who must contend with the conventions of normality (in this case embodied by the wonderous, dazzling Christmas Town). Here he kidnaps their Santa and hilariously fulfills the role himself, and that makes an opportunity for all the expected fish-out-of-water humour, along with, ultimately, an engaging character arc to come out of that.
  
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: As usual with Burton, apart from the lead, the characters are all caricatures, and the story packs no thematic depth at all.
  
  VERDICT: Henry Selick's immersive world is 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' greatest strength, whilst the usual Tim Burton tropes both buoy things along and stop the film becoming anything too emotionally investing or thought-provoking.

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