4K Ultra HD Film Review

Big Fish (2003) • 4K Ultra HD [Sony Pictures] — an emotive drama about the power of storytelling and mortality

A frustrated son tries to determine the fact from fiction in his dying father’s life.

Tim Burton’s heyday arguably ended with his ill-advised Planet of the Apes (2001) remake, after 15 years of quirky and successful movies, peaking with 1994’s Ed Wood. However, Big Fish was a last gasp of creativity before he slipped into children’s adaptations and a degree of self-parody. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) was the last good movie that pushed him creatively, but Big Fish nevertheless feels like the moment when Burton’s time as a wunderkind came to an end.

Daniel Wallace’s book Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions was published in 1998 and almost immediately adapted for the screen by John August, who was a hot new talent at the time following Go (1999) and the two Charlie’s Angels (2000–03) movies. Big Fish was a more whimsical story for August and suited Burton’s quirky sensibilities but with a lighter tone than his gloomier…