Movie Review: Big Fish

Stars: 1 out of 5

Pros: Looks great; good acting

Cons: Not enough story for the flights of fancy

The Bottom Line: 

Fun visuals and

Great acting can not make up

For lack of story

I Had Too Much Trouble Swallowing This Fish Story

I've never been converted into a full fledged Tim Burton fan.  Yes, I have enjoyed a few of his more main stream hits, but most of his films just looked too strange to me, so I'd pass right on by.  Some friends raved to me about Big Fish and loaned it to me, so I gave it a chance.  It confirmed what I've thought of Tim Burton.

While our story is about the father, it is narrated by Will Bloom (Billy Crudup).  Will and his father Ed (played as an old man by Albert Finney) are estranged after Will grew tired of Ed's constant tall tales.  When Ed comes down with terminal cancer, Will flies home to try to reconcile before it is too late.

One reason Will comes home is to try to find out what is true and what is false in the stories he's heard growing up.  But Ed wants to stick to his versions of the facts.  As his health declines, he once again spins stories of his younger days.  As a young man (played now by Ewan McGregor), Ed ran away and joined the circus, met a witch, found and lost a town, met his true love, and escaped from the enemy during war.  But is there any truth to these tales?

I tried to give this movie a fair chance.  Really, I did.  But at the end, instead of being moved, I was left feeling empty and emotionless.

To start with, we are supposed to feel for Ed.  Frankly, I was irritated by him at the start of the movie, and the feeling never went away as things progressed.  Even if he was rewriting history, he wasn't really that good a guy.  And since most of the film was about him, I was left feeling devoid of any emotional attachment to the story.

The only real plot of the film is will Ed and Will reconnect before Ed dies.  But that isn't enough plot to really keep me entertained since Will is around for so little time.  Instead, most of the movie is made up of one fanciful tale after another.  The first one or two have their charm, but as the movie wore on that charm wore thin.  By the end, I was tired of these side trips and ready to move on to the end.  That's right, I got bored.

This also hampers the characters.  We just don't see any of them enough to truly get emotionally invested in their lives.  True, we see plenty of Ed, but that's about it.  The final scenes are supposed to really connect us to Will, but he's such a non-presence in so much of the film that he might as well be a stranger.

It's simply a problem of not enough plot for the flights of whimsy.  I certainly can't blame the cast.  Burton regular Helena Bonham Carter is present, as is Jessica Lange and Danny DeVito.  Unknown or well known, they all did a great job here.

The effects were good as well.  The stories required some creative sets, and they look great with eye popping color.  There is plenty of strange make up that works.  And the other effects were all believable.

But in the end, the talent and money for effects can't hide the fact that we don't have enough story to come to care for the characters.  Big Fish is just a big waste of time.