I think what I've decided about Burton is that his body of work is just too small to get a good handle on him. I've tried the "he's best when working with his own material," but it just doesn't hold. I found both Charlie and Big Fish weak which supports that, but on the other hand, I love Batman and PeeWee and enjoyed Sleepy Hollow (not his best work, but a good movie).
Looking over his credits, perhaps a more accurate statement to this point is, "He hasn't gone wrong with his own material." While there are examples of adaptations he's done right, I don't see anything on the list that he wrote that's been bad (sorry Tref, I find Mars Attacks a ton of fun). So I suppose my conclusion would be that if it's his own material, odds are it's a good movie. If it's not his material, then it's a crap shoot.
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I remember hearing Tim Burton say that the screenwriter hadn't seen the original movie - but I'll bet the set designer did! There were too many similarities to make me forget the original movie, which was a shame, because the dialogue, actors and plotline didn't bug me at all. In fact, I really liked all of those elements.
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Exactly! I came away feeling disappointed that Burton had completely failed to put his stamp on the movie. I absolutely adore Burton's sense of artistic style and he really didn't use it at all. There was some of it in Charlie's house, but it ended there. Such a missed opportunity.