Next week sees the opening of “Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children,” Tim Burton‘s 18th feature film. Based on the delightful novel by Ransom Riggs, which is itself inspired by Riggs’ collection of vintage photographs, the film displays the sort of themes that you might, possibly foolhardily, immediately associate with Burton, as it features haunted children, gothic undertones, themes of solidarity among freaks and the noble but lonely plight of the eternal outsider. But we’d be lying if we said we weren’t wary: many of the director’s recent outings have also had that “Oh, that would be perfect for Tim Burton!” feel, and then have turned out to be “Dark Shadows” or somesuch.
READ MORE: Review: Tim Burton’s ‘Big Eyes’ Starring Amy Adams & Christoph Waltz
Because what we define as Burton-esque (and whatever the quality of his recent output, there’s no doubt that Burton has a wholly singular and very recognizable set of recurring themes, aesthetics and storylines) was established in the mid-’80s, starting with 1985’s terrific and perennially undervalued feature debut “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure,” reaching an early commercial peak with “Batman” in 1989, and a critically-embraced artistic zenith with “Ed Wood” in 1994. Since then, his work has been distinctly patchier, with his ongoing collaboration with Johnny Depp covering neither in glory over the past decade or so. That said, Burton style is such a delight when it works that we’re always hopeful it will return, and maybe, just maybe, ‘Peregrine’ is the film that will do it —certainly the casting seems pretty much on the money and the trailers look appropriately goth-y and full of dark magick. Here, to help you prepare for the worst but hope for the best in advance of that film’s release, we run the gauntlet of Burton’s filmography thus far.
17. “Alice In Wonderland” (2010)
In recent years, Burton’s choices have seemed to be dictated somewhat by someone picking out a piece of material that seems Burton-esque and then hiring the man himself to direct a film based on that material. And the results have been… dispiriting. Sure, the idea of Burton taking on Lewis Carroll’s classic fantasy “Alice In Wonderland” might have seemed like a perfect fit on paper, but in reality it was a gaudy nightmare that failed to capture the spirit of its source material or to do anything new with it. Linda Woolverton’s script tries to force the square peg of Carroll’s trippy work into the round hole of a generic Hero’s Journey narrative, leading to a finale where Alice (a game but adrift Mia Wasikowska) battles a dragon —sorry, a Jabberwocky— for no apparent reason. And yet that isn’t the worst of the film’s faults. Neither is a mindlessly quirky Johnny Depp performance as the Mad Hatter, nor the complete lack of a feel of transgressing reality, which is so important to the book. No, the worst of it —and it’s a shock coming for Burton, whose films are often beautiful even if they’re not interesting— is how ugly the film is. It’s a sort of day-glo, green-screened, effects-packed train wreck without an overarching vision or aesthetic beyond ‘this is the worst,’ and yet since it was made in the midst of “Avatar” 3D mania, it somehow made a billion dollars and remains Burton’s most successful movie by some distance.
16. “Planet of the Apes” (2001)
There are arguably some concepts that can work even in a very surface reading. A sweeping sci-fi analogy about the overthrow of humankind by its simian forbears is not one, which is entirely borne out by Burton’s take on the Charlton Heston classic. Totally incoherent, ill-conceived and tin-eared, the film nonetheless managed to cost $100m, and in fairness, a lot of that money is visible onscreen: Rick Baker’s makeup and creature effects are pretty outstanding; the apes’ clothing and armor is wonderfully well-designed; and the planet itself is built with an eye for scale and spectacle. But underneath that gloss (which occasionally feels distractingly over-designed, viz Helena Bonham Carter’s Ari, with her eyeliner and shaggy but unmistakably coiffed bob), the actors struggle to invest a paper-thin story with any real emotional heft, typified by an overwhelmed Mark Wahlberg flailing around blandly as the nu-Heston. Worst of all, in a franchise famous for spectacular dismounts, Burton’s film ends with an unearned cliffanger designed more to set up a sequel than to actually round out a plot that has been until then both needlessly overcomplicated and thematically simplistic. The small mercy is that the sequel never happened, and the rebooted ‘Planet of the Apes’ movies have been good enough to effectively wipe this disaster off the record, except as a potential trivia question.
15. “Dark Shadows” (2012)
It’s possible that Hollywood discovered this year that movies based on preexisting intellectual properties aren’t necessarily a Golden Goose. But studio big shots should have been paying attention four years ago to a film like “Dark Shadows,” which demonstrated that just because a movie was based on a 1960s soap opera that was briefly popular at the time doesn’t mean that anyone wanted to see the damn thing. The 2012 edition of “Dark Shadows” inevitably saw Depp play Barnabas Collins, a man turned into a vampire 200 years earlier by a jealous witch (Eva Green, coming close to justifying the price of admission), and waking up in 1972 to discover his dysfunctional ancestors aren’t exactly living up to his expectations. The script by “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” writer Seth Grahame-Smith attempts to capture the insane, soapy twists-and-turns common to the source material, but instead comes across as both over-busy and meandering, while Burton seemingly can’t land on a tone, veering between modern gothic and “Austin Powers”-ish parody. Unlike the very worst of Burton, there are redeeming features here, including an inventive banging-on-the-ceiling sex scene and a fun turn from Michelle Pfeiffer as the icy matriarch, but the film’s ultimately deeply forgettable and began Depp’s current disastrous box office run.
14. “Charlie & The Chocolate Factory” (2005)
You would think that Roald Dahl, the great children’s author who mixed wonder with the macabre, would be a perfect fit for Burton. And yet his 2005 remake of “Charlie & The Chocolate Factory,” one of Dahl’s best-known books (previously the source for the 1971 Gene Wilder vehicle “Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory”), while not entirely bad, is a long way from being good. The story remains virtually identical from previous versions, albeit with some needless backstory sprinkled on, presumably from studio notes: young, incredibly poor Charlie wins a Golden Ticket for a tour of a magical chocolate factory owned by enigmatic candy magnate, along with a group of much more fortunate but lousy kids and their equally unpleasant parents. It has a hint of the heart and soul it could have had, thanks in large part to a charming Freddie Highmore as the title character (in fact, all of the kids are fairly great). But even more than the director’s work otherwise, this is a film smothered by its elaborate production design and smothered far more by Depp’s performance, seemingly nodding to Michael Jackson but never really developing beyond a wacky caricature.
13. “Big Eyes” (2014)
This film has all the hallmarks of a comeback vehicle: it’s based on a true story, featuring minimal CG and a much less garish approach than Burton’s recent works, casting respected thesps in showy central roles and enjoying an appealing period setting enabling some pretty photography, sets, costumes and location work. And it is concerened with very “Ed Wood”-ish subjects: authenticity in art, the clash between high and low culture, and the value of kitsch caught between cynicism and sincere sentiment. But despite Amy Adams‘ perfect playing of the manipulated Margaret Keane, who painted the “big-eyed waif” pictures her husband Walter took credit for “Big Eyes” is a disappointment —a flat, uninspired rendering of a story that should feel much more textured. Part of the problem is Christoph Waltz‘s irritatingly outsize performance as Walter. His turn is such a mass of affectations that it’s hard to believe he ever would have taken anyone in, or indeed seemed particularly threatening, but it’s not his fault that Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski’s script gives little insight into his megalomania. Interesting subtexts teased by the inclusion of a snooty art critic (Terence Stamp) and a low-brow gossip columnist (Danny Huston) also never go anywhere, and Burton feels curiously disengaged from a story with which we’d hoped he’d feel a passionate, reinvigorating kinship.