Big Fish

When it catches fire, this great-looking movie offers hilarious diversions. And as father and son struggle toward a hard-won reconciliation, Big Fish reveals its beating heart.

Big Fish really belongs to Albert Finney, who proves that when it comes to large performances there is no one who can quite match a British Shakespearean with good camera sense.

Delightful, sad father-son story for teens and up.

For the first time since Ed Wood, Burton has transcended his hermetically-sealed world and connected with wider concerns.

The film doesn't so much reject history as selectively rewrite it to its own reactionary, even offensive ends. This might perhaps be just about tolerable were the film funny, illuminating, insightful or moving. It is not.

As we grow older, we understand that these little white lies, this expansion of the truth, tells just as much about our parents as the actual non fiction-aided history does.

This is perhaps Burton’s most soulful film besides Edward Scissorhands, a lovely fable weaved with tall tales and a grand heart.

That melancholy mutes much of it so as the film goes to an idyllic town, a bank robbery, dances, and a circus, it never actually turns into something like Batman Returns or Beetlejuice

Tim Burton's lone outstanding, heartfelt film of the last two decades may not seem like a natural fit with his horror-tinged oeuvre. But in some ways it's his most intimate, personal movie.

The sentiment behind the plot is sweet and endearing and the movie is an excellent example of Burton, the master filmmaker, at work.