| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Movie Name | Corpse Bride (2005) |
| Director | Tim Burton, Mike Johnson |
| Writer | John August, Caroline Thompson, Pamela Pettler |
| Lead Actor | Johnny Depp (voice of Victor) |
| Cast | Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Tracey Ullman, Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney, Christopher Lee |
| Genre | Animation, Fantasy, Musical, Romance |
| Release Date | September 23, 2005 (USA) |
| Duration | 1 hour 17 minutes |
| Budget | $40 million |
| Language | English |
| IMDb Rating | 7.3/10 |
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You’d think by now that Tim Burton might be done with skeletons. After all, in 1993 he wrote and produced The Nightmare Before Christmas, in which Jack Skellington, the King of Halloween town, attempted to expand his empire to the Yuletide season with predictably horrific results. The stop motion animated movie was fast and funny, and while it may be too early to talk about it in terms of a family classic, it definitely seems headed in that direction. Any attempt to revisit that territory is bound to invite comparisons, but Burton is a brave man, and so out he comes now with Corpse Bride, which can best described as The Nightmare Before Christmas lite. This return to stop motion animation is properly macabre and mostly amusing, but ultimately trivial.
The Everglots are a titled family with no money, while the Van Dorts are nouveau riche, lacking social standing. Both have children of a marriageable age, so it only seems logical that each family gets what it needs from the other through the arranged nuptials of the Everglot’s daughter, Victoria (Emily Watson), to Van Dort heir, Victor (Johnny Depp). The two young people don’t even meet until just prior to the wedding rehearsal, during which petrified Victor keeps blowing his vows.
Victor goes for a walk in the woods to clear his head, practicing his vows as he ambles, and holding Victoria’s wedding ring. Just as he perfects his recitation, the ring slips and lands on what looks like a dead branch, but what turns out to be the petrified finger of Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter). Murdered by her fiancé on the eve of her wedding, she has been waiting ever since for the man who would make her his wife. Victor’s protests that it is all a big misunderstanding fall on deaf ears as she whisks him to the underworld to celebrate their union.
It puts Victor who lives his life in an effort never to give offense to anyone in quite a predicament Should he try to escape and find his way back to Victoria, or forget about his intended and try to make a life (in a manner of speaking) with this strange skeletal woman and her maggot friend that makes its home behind her eyes?
From the standpoint of art and character design, Corpse Bride is stunning. Burton, co-director Mike Johnson, and their team have created an upside down world where it is the still breathing who live in a land that is dead. There is little color among the people or the village where the breathing walk, the palette is somber and mostly done in shades of gray. In contrast, Corpse Bride’s skeleton pals tend to prefer primary colors for their funereal garments, and their crypt is alive with laughter and show tunes.
The movie is at its best in these sequences. Danny Elfman’s songs are witty, and the animation team is clearly having a blast staging these skeleton dances. Some of the finest sequences are the simplest: naked, blindingly white skeletons syncopating whole and in parts in front of a stark black background.
Unlike The Nightmare Before Christmas, Burton gets no credit for writing or story development, and the difference is crucial. A committee of three John August, Pamela Pettler, and Caroline Thompson receive screenplay credit, and one would think that by putting so many heads together, they might have come up with something more substantial.
Instead, the story is shallow and predictable, and there are a couple of stretches in Corpse Bride’s scant 75-minute running time that land with a dull thud. Considering the visual artistry onscreen and the charm of the vocal performances, that is a bit shocking. But the fact of the matter is that this tale is so thin, it could have been told in less than an hour, so those dull stretches are but a bit of padding.
Such moments of boredom might be the price one pays for a movie that otherwise delivers on the promise that the name “Tim Burton” implies. It is a visual feast with a rollicking soundtrack and wonderful performances by Depp and his costars. By getting up to his old tricks, Burton has delivered an outré family film for this Halloween season, and it’s mostly a treat.
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