Wonderful dark stop-motion animated fairy tale.

Rating: 8/10 (24 April 2010)

Corpse Bride is set in a 19th Century European village where Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) the son of local fishmongers is to be married off to Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson) the daughter of the penniless Maudeline (Joanna Lumley) & Finis (Albert Finney), as an arranged marriage for the benefit of the parents neither Victor or Victoria have even met each other before but when they do they fall in love for real. During a wedding rehearsal Victor keeps messing his lines up & takes a walk in nearby woods to practice his lines when he accidentally marries himself to the corpse of Emily (Helena Bonham Carter) who comes to life & insists that she & Victor are now married & takes him to the underworld where the dead hang out. Victor wants to get back to the land of the living & marry Victoria but his new Corpse Bride won't let him get away so easily...
This American British co-production was directed by Tim Burton & Mike Johnson & is a simply wonderful fantasy with gorgeous visuals & beautiful stop-motion animation, having brought it on Blu-Ray & watched it yesterday Corpse Bride is easily one of the best films I have seen in a long time. Corpse Bride is an enchanting dark fairy tale about a twisted love triangle as Victor has two women fighting over him, one dead & one alive. It's amazing how much the character's come across, how much personality & how charming they are. Corpse Bride is also surprisingly moving with a rather bitter sweet ending that is genuinely sad & emotional. At only 77 minutes the pace is great, the film is full of memorable moments like the funny part when the skeleton's jaw drops off at the end or the touching scene between Victoria & Victor together playing a piano, there's three fun song & dance numbers although the majority of the film is spoken dialogue. With a simple yet clear & engaging plot full of great moments Corpse Bride is a unique work of art as well as a fantastic film that I thought was excellent in every way & can't recommend it enough.
Obviously a labour of love for many Corpse Bride looks fabulous, with it's beautifully designed sets & puppets this is a visual treat. The character's are all thin Insect stick like or fat, squat & barrel shaped & the whole film is simply gorgeous to look at. The sets are great too, from the dull & grey land of the living to the colourful land of the dead which is much more vibrant as the dead no longer have to conform to the rigid constraints of the living. The detail is also amazing with the smallest thing given utmost attention, Corpse Bride is the sort of film you watch several times & notice new things each time. The Blu-Ray I brought has several brief featurettes which are not in depth enough with none of them lasting more than nine minutes but you do get the idea behind the amount of effort that was put into Corpse Bride, from the sets to the puppets themselves which have clockwork gears inside them to control facial features & stance. Apparently Corpse Bride was shot with a digital still camera rather than a proper film camera & the individual frames were edited together. With a 55 week shooting schedule just to film the animation & not including pre or post production Corpse Bride was over a year in the making & it show's.
With a supposed budget of about $40,000,000 a lot of time, effort & money was spent on Corpse Bride & the finished product was worth it, I also recently saw another similar film Coraline (2009) which is also beautifully animated & it's shame both films underperformed at the box-office. There's some great voice actors here, Depp, Watson, Carter, Christopher Lee, Richard E. Grant & Michael Gough all have parts.
Corpse Bride is a fantastic film that I loved & has now become a personal favourite of mine, from the beautiful animation & character's to the enchanting story of twisted love, I liked it & can't think of anything negative to say about it.