The Ending (spoilers)

I loved this movie, I honestly did. I love the classic Universal horrors that it was so heavily based on, and I loved all the little references. I admit the movie wasn't perfect, in fact in many ways it was very flawed, but I still liked it.

The one thing I didn't like was the ending. Call me heartless if you want, but I think the ending would have been far better if the dog, Sparky, stayed dead at the end.

The reason being that the movie tells us several times (usually from the parents) that death is death, you can't bring people back just because you miss them, it's nor morally right to do. The film had a pretty good message about coping with death and overcoming tragedy not by burying yourself in the tragedy itself but by moving past it.

The film even seems like it's going to go whole-hog with it's message and leave the dog dead as Victor agrees with his parents that you shouldn't bring someone back from the dead just because you miss them.

If the film just transitioned there to something like a nice sunny summertime baseball game, with everyone happy and moved-on from the events, and then ended, I think it would've been far better, but the ending they used where they bring the dog back from the dead just feels tacked on for the sake of being a Disney movie. Had the film been more mature about it's ending I would have thought more highly of it, but as is I enjoy it, but I'm aware it's juts a bit of cheap entertainment without any real moral value, which is a pity since 'Frankenstein' is a story positively drenched in morals and lessons.