The "Corpse Bride" lives!!!

Rating: 7/10 (22 February 2006)

As a big fan of Tim Burton, it has been pleasing for me to see his work go from strength to strength in recent years, especially after the much-criticised "re-imagining" of "Planet Of The Apes". What's also pleasing is how much he can change his focus on when it comes to particular audiences. In the case of, say, "Ed Wood", we have a mature adult audience against the family-based "Charlie And The Chocolate Factory." "Corpse Bride" fits into the latter category like a well-fitting glove. Like "The Nightmare Before Christmas" before it, "Corpse Bride" is a wonderful stop-motion gem filled with Burton's typical grotesque characters and Gothic, dark and often very funny humour.
The tale is fairly simple - Victor Van Dort is arranged to be married to Victoria, whose parents are grudgingly setting up for marriage because they are broke. Victor, being a quiet, timid sort of guy, is made worse by the fact that he falls in love with Victoria almost straight away, and so can't say his vows properly during the rehearsal. Practising with a few twigs in the woods, he inadvertently marries the Corpse Bride, who whisks him away to where she lives in the Land Of The Dead. Now not only does Victor have to try and escape, he also has to try to stop the villainous intentions of Barkis Bittern, whose ideas of marrying Victoria are not all that innocent...
The animation is superb, no question about that. In fact it's refreshing to see, along with "Wallace And Gromitt: Curse Of The Were-Rabbit", the return of stop-motion after a lengthy wait after the last masterpiece of this type of animation, "Chicken Run", and before that "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and the "Wallace And Gromitt" shorts. In fact, it's nice to see Burton taking a risk with an art that is certainly considered dated in this modern-day age of Pixar and Dreamworks CGI films.
The voice cast is outstanding - Johnny Depp as Victor gives his usual brilliant Johnny Depp best with an English accent that sounds like a quieter version of Ichabod Crane from "Sleepy Hollow", another Burton film. Burton's other regulars are all here: Christopher Lee and Helena Bonham Carter, who gives a magnificent performance as the Corpse Bride with genuine feeling and emotion. The rest of the British cast - Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney as Victoria's parents, Tracy Ullman and Paul Whitehouse as Victor's, and Emily Watson as Victoria - all are wonderful. As is Richard E Grant as Bittern, though I do feel we don't see enough of him.
The music is typical Danny Elfman - spell-bindingly beautiful and haunting. Like Tim Burton and animation, Tim Burton and Danny Elfman just connect so well. What I do feel was lacking was a few more songs, especially after the triumph of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" which was, to a large extent, sung. Still the songs here are fairly good, though none are as catchy as the ones in "Nightmare". It's actually nice to hear both Paul Whitehouse and Helena Bonham Carter singing!
In fact, and this is my real moan, I actually thought that the film was a little too short at 74 minutes. Although Burton was obviously going for the family audience, there are some Disney films which are longer than this. It left me wanting more, and where that is generally a good thing, I felt it rather negative for this film. There are also parts of the story which some little children won't understand exactly - they may find it a little scary as well, though Burton's dark humour is enough to make this fear diminish quickly.
"Corpse Bride", despite it's length, is a wonderful film. Along with Aardman, Tim Burton has breathed new life into stop-motion animation. It didn't win the Oscar, but I knew it wouldn't - the flaw for the film was that it was released around the same time as "Wallace And Gromitt", and as both were up for the Best Animation Oscar at the 2006 awards, I had a feeling that "Wallace And Gromitt" will clinch it. A pity, because I do believe that this film would have very much been an Oscar winner.
7/10