Being of rock star stock I don’t usually read reviews. Alas I was thoroughly bored yesterday so I took a trip to Film Guardian and read both the Guardian and Observer reviews of Big Fish. Both were fairly despondent of Tim Burton’s (Edward Scissorhands) latest piece. So I went to the MK Cineworld Multiplex with some degree of apathy and met with my usual viewing buddy and film aficionado, Séamus.
It just goes to show that you can’t rely on the reviews as I thoroughly enjoyed Big Fish. It was an intertwining of a terminally ill father continuing to tell the fairy-tale embellished moments of his life story to his disinterested son. Not only was it a film for all the family with different levels of humour throughout but it also had fantastically poignant and tear jerking moments too. The lady with the glass eye was pretty scary and Burton’s Big Friendly Giant was so odd to look at to the credit of the costume designers and makeup artists. As ever, the attention to detail was flawless and the uneasy gothic undertones of the set added that extra Burton magic to a great Ewan McGregor performance.