Big Fish (2003)

Burton rebounds strongly with a visual feast and emotional power that recalls Edward Scissorhands. The film makes a strong case for the life-affirming power of make-believe through its generous spirit and fantastical storytelling.

The film aligns Burton's visual style with a story that has more than one foot in the real world, resulting in charming, witty and warm-hearted filmmaking. It is praised for transcending Burton's usual world to connect with wider emotional concerns about family and truth.

Big Fish is a sentimental but never manipulative nonsecular tall tale about the desire to live with wonderment. Burton's fantastical set pieces and images, saturated with love, single out the power of myth over reason in illuminating family connections and spirituality.

Burton reaches an apogee with this tale of tall tales and father-son reconciliation. Albert Finney's performance is singled out as the standout, delivering a broad range of emotions that moves even a jaded critic.

The film drifts colourfully along but ultimately lacks the edge that made Edward Scissorhands so powerful and strange.

The critic finds the fantastical flashbacks full of expected wonders but too fluffy and innocuous to grip tightly. The present-day father-son reconciliation theme is overdone and the film is ultimately a disappointment.

Bradshaw finds the film not weird enough, with Burton's fantasy decaffeinated into a cutesy family drama that lacks edge or dark side. He criticizes the sentimental ending and calls the result a tiny bit dull.

The critic finds the film not funny, illuminating, insightful or moving, criticizing its portrayal of history and gender roles.

Burton's wistful film about fathers, sons and tall tales showcases his imagination in fantastical scenarios, making it the straightest entry in his repertoire. The shift to family melodrama and the son's reproach drags it down, though Jessica Lange brightens those sections.

A gently whimsical tale of reconciliation and fabulism that is the director's most sentimental piece to date, repositioning him as a mainstream filmmaker.

The film risks mush with its sentimental picaresque and nervous fantasizing that undercuts Burton's usual wit, feeling like a softening up rather than growth. Some Burton-esque moments stand out, but the overall approach to tall tales and the circus trope disappoints.

The critic finds the magical-realist fable thin and soft, with unpersuasive inventions despite some startling scenes. Burton's visual sensibility is praised but the storytelling falters and the film proves ultimately forgettable.

Landesman says Burton tries too hard to repeat the past and the film ends up crushed under the weight of its own whimsy, with the father/son conflict never taking off. He calls it a comeback attempt that falls flat.

The critic laments the film's excessive sentimentality, which he believes has stripped Burton of his signature darkness, and declares it a failure on every level that wastes its talented cast. He singles out the dysfunctional father-son relationship and the jarring contrast between the realistic and fantastical elements for particular criticism.