Movie Review: Edison & Leo
Telefilm Canada, Perfect Circle Produce Canadian Stop-Motion Film
Sep 4, 2008
(Writer's Note: This movie screened during the Toronto Film Festival)
Edison & Leo is the first feature-length stop-motion film ever produced in Canada. That alone makes it a historic document. However, the flick's slam-dunk achievements are undercut by some serious, and fundamental, flaws.
What's Edison & Leo About?
The initial voice-over tells us that George T. Edison (voiced by Powers Boothe) is an extremely wealthy scientist with a loose sense of morality, especially when it comes to other people's property. He calls it "collecting;" others call it theft.
When one of his unethical stunts ends up hurting his wife, he goes to the Pasana Native Indian tribe for a quickie cure. However, while the Pasana are saving his wife, George makes off with the tribe's Book of Light. In the ensuing mayhem, (a) his beloved wife is killed, (b) the Pasana vow heinous revenge for the theft, and (c) his younger son Leo (Gregory Smith) is permanently electrified. In fact, Leo is so full of alternating current that he cannot make contact with any other human being, lest he give them a lethal jolt.
Macabre hijinks ensue, along with a sort-of love story.
Is It Any Good?
First, the positives. Edison & Leo was made for a paltry $10 million, and it looks like it cost over 5 times that amount. The character designs and sets look stunning, and the film has a dark, steampunk quality to it. If the rumours circulating around this production are true, director Neil Burns literally turned a sow's ear into a silk purse with this movie.
It does owe a lot to The Nightmare Before Christmas, especially in the opening sequence. However, Edison & Leo is far more adult-oriented than Tim Burton's Halloween classic. There are some blatant sexual jokes in the flick, and plenty of gore. Yes, it's stop-motion. No, it's not for kids.
But this movie has one massive flaw: the script.
Daegan Fryklind and George Toles commit several rookie mistakes in their screenplay. For instance, one character's motivations are established (by voice-over, no less) at the beginning of the film, but aren't pursued. Possible plot directions are introduced with great fanfare, but aren't used later on. Chekhov's Gun is loaded, and the safety taken off, but it never leaves the mantlepiece.
The Amazing Coincidental Machine also makes an appearance here, with characters arriving at "convenient" moments, and a certain character developing control of their gift with very little explanation as to how they did it.
The characters are caricatures. Leo, despite being the ostensible hero (he's blond and blue-eyed, natch) doesn't have enough depth for the audience to sympathize with his plight. Leo's obligatory Romeo-and-Juliet love story with a beautiful Pasana (Carly Pope) is just that: obligatory with no reason why the two characters would develop an attraction to each other.
Everyone else is straight out of the Movie Caricatures playbook: there's the weasel older brother (Ben Cotton) who wants to kill his dad, the mad scientist with the out-of-control libido and ego, the senile-but-lovable Grandpa, the loyal Black servant, and the wise old Native woman. They're there to fulfill their roles, and none of them get any backstory, or have any real emotional journey throughout the film. Some of them are there just for comic relief, but the gags aren't all that funny.
The Final Analysis
From a technical perspective, Edison & Leo is a triumph of Canadian cinema; proof that an animated movie can look good without needing big bucks behind it. However, even with a 10-year gestation period, writers Fryklind and Toles couldn't put together a cohesive script with well-rounded characters that the audience could relate to.
Not only that, there was very little laughter from the audience. That's the ultimate test for any comedy (even a dark one), and this movie fails that test.
Ultimately, Edison & Leo is a great looking stop-motion film with a lousy script. It gets a 6/10.
