“Big Fish” baits viewers with delightful and delirious tales of haunted forests, giants and feats of heroism. And unlike the fabled Alabama catfish, which because of its savvy has grown to the size of a man, the audience is unable to pass up the hook cast by director Tim Burton (“Batman,” “Edward Scissorhands”).

Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) charms everyone he meets with his larger-than-life tales. Everyone, that is, except for his estranged son William Bloom (Billy Crudup). When Will’s mother Sandra (Jessica Lange) calls him home to visit his dying father, Will arrives determined to separate the fact from the fiction in his father’s life.

“My father talked about a lot of things he never did, and did a lot of things he never talked about,” Will says. “I’m just trying to reconcile the two.”

But even when sick, Bloom insists on sticking to the same tall tales he’s always told about his days as a young man (played by Ewan McGregor). Like the time he looked a witch straight in the eye, or the time he was an unwilling accomplice in a bank robbery, or how he saved the town of Spectre by buying the whole of it.

These colorful adventures make it impossible not to get wrapped up in the dreamlike world screenwriter John August paints. (August based his script on a novel by Daniel Wallace.)

The scene where Bloom sees his future wife for the first time is especially imaginative. Time stops, and the audience and circus performers freeze in midstep as Bloom steps through a silver hoop and brushes popcorn out of the air in order to get closer to the girl in the blue dress. But before he reaches her, time starts again, and the townsfolk move on fast-forward to catch up. The woman slips out of sight.

Bloom has to spend three years being shot from cannons and cleaning elephant dung before he learns the name of his wife and is able to win her over by planting thousands of daffodils outside her window.

The film is able to capture how Bloom and Sandra are still madly in love, despite the passage of years. In fact, the present-day scenes between husband and wife, and father and son, are so engaging that it’s a little disappointing to be transported back in time for another tale. Their real lives are already just as interesting as the time Bloom saw an iceberg being hauled down to Texas “to use for drinkin’ water.”

“Big Fish” is a big movie about not only the relationship between father and son, but the essence of a truth, and the ability of fiction to be more honest than facts. While Will says he prefers the real story of his birth, the tall tale his father weaves shows how disappointed he was that he couldn’t be at the hospital and how important the birth of his child was – messages that would otherwise be omitted in the real version.

With its strong themes, exacting costuming and fantastical tales, “Big Fish” is box office bait at its best.

Big Fish

Rated PG-13 for a fight scene, some images of nudity and a suggestive reference

Starring: Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange

Director: Tim Burton

Length: Two hours five minutes

Now playing at: Astoria Gateway Cinemas, Cannes Cinema in Seaside

Short take: In “Big Fish,” director Tim Burton hooks his audience with fanciful tall tales and vivid imagery while exploring the deeper issues of father-son relationships and the meaning of “truth.” Viewers are pulled headlong into haunted forests, wowed by a circus and meet gentle giants in a beautifully crafted adventure.

Rating: Three and a half stars (out of four)

Movie trivia: What famous appearance in a 1972 movie was made by Billy Redden, the banjo man in “Big Fish?”

Answer: Billy Redden was the banjo-playing backwoods boy in “Deliverance.”