Reviews WesternAnimation / The Nightmare Before Christmas

Too Bad This Is Getting Hype Backlash . . .

. . . because this is a genuinely good, if not great, movie.

I won't waste my review words summarizing the movie, as the main page describes it better then I can. One of the common criticisms of this film is "it's slow". I think that's one of the movie's strengths, as it doesn't depend on loads of action-filled sequences, but rather on subtle emotion. Yes, Nightmare does sometimes a lot of times have its GREAT DECLARATIONS OF EMOTION!!!, but a lot of the times the emotion are understated. We don't need Jack and Sally saying out loud that they're friends for us to know they are friends (Well, most of us). We can tell by their interactions. In the story department, the film obviously have a lot of inspiration from How The Grinch Stole Christmas, but mananges to make its own macabre tale.

Despite being the first full-length Stop Motion film, the animation is still impressive. The music is fantastic (provided by Danny Elfman, of course) and it has an unique charm to it that blends the macabre with Yule Tide spirit.

Really, the only criticism I have is that I would love to see more development of the antoganistic relationship between Jack and Oogie. Awesome as Oogie is, he really seems to be added to the plot just so there's an interesting Final Battle. A little more info on why they hate each other so much would be suffient (and for the record, I'm not impressed by the Back Story given in The Pumpkin King game).

Probably the best way to see this movie is not to base first impressions on the so-called "fans" who get the merch so to look Goth. It's quite unfair to the film to do so.