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Overall Rating
 Awesome: 41.13%
Worth A Look: 37.1%
Just Average: 14.52%
Pretty Crappy: 6.45%
Sucks: 0.81%
12 reviews, 52 user ratings
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| Corpse Bride |
by Peter Sobczynski
"Tim Burton leaves us with a very good-looking corpse"
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The title “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” contains what may be the most superfluous attribution in the world of entertainment since Johnny Cash used to open his concerts by announcing “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.” Come on, who else would dare to not only give us a romantic fable about a marriage in which the bride and groom don’t even meet until long after death has already definitively parted them but to stage it as an elaborate experiment in stop-motion animation aimed squarely at family audiences? Also, what other filmmaker working today could take such a bizarre idea for a film and transform it into a cheerful delight is as funny, quirky and ghoulishly romantic as the title suggests?The groom is Victor (Johnny Depp), a nervous young lad who, as the story begins, flees the rehearsal to his arranged marriage with the fair Victoria (Emily Watson) to practice his vows in the nearby deep, dark woods. The bride is Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), a lovely lass who was robbed and murdered long ago by her rotter fiancee and who accepts Victor’s inadvertent proposal (he placed the ring on what he thought was a branch but which turned out to be a skeletal figure) and whisks him away to the Underworld to live as man and wife. Understandably skittish at first–more so than usual–Victor begins to succumb to Emily’s considerable charms and decides to make an honest stiff out of her, leading to a trip for the couple (and all their Underworld friends) to the real world where secrets are uncovered, grave injustices are revenged and nearly everyone, living and dead, more or less get what they deserve.
Visually, the film is extraordinary–the Gothic-influenced stop-motion animation is done so fluidly and flawlessly that it makes “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” Burton’s previous foray into the form, look like a ratty old “Gumby” episode by comparison. Dramatically, it isn’t quite as satisfying as “Nightmare.” The story moves so abruptly at times that it feels as if entire scenes were dropped at some point in the production process and the resulting holes where never adequately patched over: I would have loved to have seen more of Emily’s backstory and the fascinating machinations of the Underworld instead of the relative scraps that we actually get. Another problem is the insistence on larding the film with songs (courtesy of Danny Elfman) that feel as if they have been added simply because an animated film require them rather than because of any legitimate artistic reasoning. And even if they had felt like an organic part of the story, matters aren’t helped by the fact that they all sound like outtakes from “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”However, these narrative problems are never quite serious enough to spoil the fun of “Corpse Bride”–partly because an unsteady storyline in a Tim Burton film is hardly a surprise these days and partly because so many other elements of the film work do work wonderfully. Depp and Carter are both perfect in their roles and the film also features virtuoso vocal turns from the likes of Albert Finney, Richard E. Grant and the invaluable Hammer Studios veterans Christopher Lee and Michael Gough. There are also a lot of laughs to be had as well–both big (Emily has a Peter Lorre-influenced maggot in her head that is always adding commentary to events) and small (check out the name on the piano Victor plays in an early scene)–and even a bit of moving sentiment towards the end that reveals that this “Corpse” has a beating heart inside after all.
link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=12831&reviewer=389
originally posted: 09/23/05 00:06:49
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2005 Toronto Film Festival For more in the 2005 Toronto Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
16-Sep-2005 (PG)
DVD: 31-Jan-2006
UK
N/A
Australia
17-Nov-2005
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