Finney does have a good, gape-mouthed look here when his son objects to his going on and on--it's the emblematic expression of the pest who can't even conceive that people aren't entranced by what he says. (Which is to say he's not as miscast here as he was as Dr. Sloper in Agnieszka Holland's faithful-isn't-everything adaptation of Washington Square (1997; I can't think of a role in Henry James that Finney would be right for).) And it's not his fault to the extent the movie doesn't really ask him to do something difficult, for instance, to get at the unsettling pathos of the father whose exertions to entertain his son are perceived by the son as a form of neglect.

This feeling lurks, but finally we're asked simply to love the old Edward not the young one, which McGregor, with his Claymation smile, makes so easy. For that matter, we're not really asked. Instead, the movie applies the same kind of emotional pressure on the audience that families put on you, not just to make peace with the most demanding personalities while holding your own, but to give in to them. Maybe this is why audiences are swallowing this half-baked sugar pie. Just don't let anyone tell you it's a sign Tim Burton's talent has matured.

A final note: in this interview with FilmForce Burton expresses how I feel about computer graphic images in movies:

Of course, actor Matthew McGrory was only a mere 7'6", not the towering behemoth seen in the film. Burton explained how they enhanced McGrory's height. "A lot was in camera. It was just angles and lenses. It was important to me to not overdo CG stuff because since you can do anything, it just felt like it needed to remain on a more sort of handmade human funky level just because of the nature of the stories and what the movie is."

Alan Dale is author of Comedy Is a Man in Trouble: Slapstick in American Movies.