Victor Frankenstein is a smart young boy with a faithful dog named Sparky as his only friend.   When accident claims Sparky, Victor gets the idea (from a science experiment done by his science teacher) to bring his friend back to life with electricity and lightning.   Victor tries to hide the fact he has brought Sparky back.  However, sometimes secrets have a way of getting out and it helps propels the story of FRANKENWEENIE which is based on Tim Burton’s own live action short of the same name while being a homage to the classic FRANKENSTEIN film from Universal Pictures.   FRANKENWEENIE has an assortment of interesting characters including the girl next door (voiced by Winona Ryder) who has one scene stealing moment as she has to be a New Holland girl singing at the local carnival wearing a hat with lighted candles.   Then Tim Burton inserts a scene from an old Dracula film from Hammer Films which is playing on the TV in one scene and the big windmill in the town of New Holland foreshadows a scene that is a homage to FRANKENSTEIN.   Tim Burton has crafted a lovable and fun stop animation film.   It explores what it is be a kid with one friend and how weird kids can be.  Then you have the old people afraid of science bit.   The only problem with FRANKENWEENIE is that it spirals a little out of control in the last thirty minutes as it decides to turn into a variety of different monster movies.   If they didn’t go in that direction and followed up with Victor’s quest to protect Sparky, I think it would have been a stronger film.