They don’t make movies like Big Eyes anymore. That’s a good thing. And yet there is something oddly appealing about Tim Burton’s completely-not-Tim-Burton-style drama. Aside from the hammy acting, questionable screenplay and uninteresting direction.

Did I find Big Eyes entertaining? Yes, for the most part. Is it a good movie? Not really. About a female painter who, in the 1960’s, lets her sociopathic husband build an empire by taking credit for her work--paintings of creepy children with creepy large eyes--Big Eyes is one of those movies that has a good guy and a bad guy, without a lot of color in between. It’s fun on a superficial level--you want the dude to get the shit beaten out of him on more than one occasion--but when all is said and done, it’s a superficial, lazy piece of art.

Amy Adams stars as Margaret Keane, and does a servicable job where she basically plays a shy, weak-minded woman who doesn’t do a whole lot until a couple of church-going women show up at her doorstep and, in instant, she has decided it’s time to take back what’s hers. This is not Adams’ best performance by any stretch of the imagination.

Christoph Waltz, as her husband Walter, is at least fun to watch, though his scenery-chewing tirades are obnoxiously hammy. As good as an actor as he is, even he can’t make his performance be anything more than a one-dimensional mockery.

Despite all this, it’s good to see Tim Burton not making a CGI-filled spectacle/disaster starring Johnny Depp for once. You’ll never know you’re watching a Tim Burton movie, as Big Eyes looks and feels like a small, shot-on-an-overly-lit-set kind of movie. The filmmaking isn’t very inspiring, but at least it’s different.

And despite all of the movie’s issues, Big Eyes does work at a rudimentary level. Walter Keane becomes such an ugly, horrible character that you can’t help but root for him to fail, and the movie succeeds in spite of itself. It’s fun to watch, slightly amusing and certainly harmless. There’s nothing wrong with that… but nothing that should be cheered for, either.

Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.