TT: Big barrel, rubber fish

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I have absolutely nothing good to say about Big Fish. Here’s an excerpt.
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Movies used to get made out of musicals. Now it’s the other way round: “Big Fish” is based on Tim Burton’s 2003 film version of Daniel Wallace’s novel about an amiable blowhard whose final illness and death bring his son face to face with the meaning of life. “Big Fish” was one of those nominally serious Hollywood movies in which watered-down Christian symbolism is enlisted in the service of New Age spiritualism, a footless pseudo-religion that demands nothing of its adherents save the inchoate desire to be happier. On Broadway, the content-free feel-goodism of Mr. Burton’s film becomes a devout belief in the transfiguring power of the production number….
The conceit of “Big Fish” is that Edward Bloom (Norbert Leo Butz) is a compulsive fabulist who specializes in taller-than-tall stories in which he is invariably the hero: “Be the hero of your story if you can/Be the champion in the fight/Not just the man.” Among those present are a giant, a mermaid, and Will (Bobby Steggert), Edward’s sober-sided son, who has always been embarrassed by his father’s fantasies and now longs to know if there was any truth to them at all.
You can, I suspect, guess the rest, just as you’ve probably already figured out that “Big Fish” adds up to little more than a long string of loosely strung musical numbers in which Edward’s extravagant tales of derring-didn’t are dramatized. Though there’s a plot of sorts, you may find it hard to understand why you should care about it, especially since the climactic epiphany is as sappy as it’s predictable.
John August, whose book is based on his screenplay for Mr. Burton’s film, has contrived to trivialize something that was more than trivial enough to begin with. He had plenty of help, though, from Andrew Lippa, lately of “The Addams Family,” whose songs blend theme-park pop with greeting-card lyrics to babyishly banal effect….
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Read the whole thing here.