A typical Burton: Good visuals, but not much beneath the surface

Rating: 7/10 (4 October 2009)

Tim Burton is a director who almost always makes enjoyable movies - you can watch them, enjoy them, laugh a bit here and a bit there - but eventually you will forget them. Tim Burton creates beautiful and magical worlds, and the problem is that he often just focus too much on the visuals.
In that sense, Corpse Bride is a typical Burton movie. The plot is a simple fairytale which works great for the moment, but it's not something that will stay in your head. Instead you'll want to watch it for the typical Gothic style of his movies, which works great. It's beautiful animated and Danny Elfman's music adds even more to the atmosphere. What's interesting here is that the movie show us two worlds - the world of the living and the land of the dead - and it's the world of the living that is the dark place, with a color scale of black, gray and white and inhabitants that are sad, evil and greedy. In the land of the dead corpses and skeletons sing together, it's colorful and mysteriously beautiful and almost everyone there seems to be having a good time, even though they're dead.
The voice actors are great; as many times before, Burton features Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in his movies. They're both great. Other notable voice actors are Christopher Lee and Emily Watson.
In the end, it's a pretty funny movie during the time you watch it, but there's no depth in the story whatsoever. It's no movie that stays in your head. That's the reason that I can't rate it any higher, but if you get the chance to see it it's good entertainment for an hour and a half.