The only real problem is it's too short

Rating: 9/10 (25 September 2005)

Tim Burton delivers another visual marvel through stop-motion animation with "Corpse Bride." More than ten years after "The Nightmare Before Christmas," Burton revisits this painstaking animation technique, and delivers a sweeter story, with funnier characters, and even more stunning visuals.
The story centers around a young fishmonger's son named Victor Von Dort, who bears a decent resemblance to his voice, Johnny Depp. Before an arranged marriage to the young Victoria, voiced by Emily Watson (Julie Andrews fans may cringe now), Victor gets cold feet, bungles the rehearsal, and goes off into the night. While practicing his wedding vows, he places his wedding band on what he believes is a branch, but in reality is the decayed hand of the cursed Corpse Bride, Emily (Helena Bonham Carter). Emily rises from her grave, and claims to be legally married to the terrified Victor. A comedy of errors ensues.
The film has problems, like any other. There are continuity errors (watch the placement of the general's sword in the first bar scene), but they're easily ignored. The music is an odd addition, mostly because there are only four songs, only two of which have any relevance to the plot. But when you boil it down, the only real problem is that the film goes too fast. It clocks at 76 minutes, which is standard for a straight-to-video cartoon. There were a lot of things that could be done to extend the story, or develop the characters more. Trust me, the characters are so compelling, and the writing so crisp, the audience would not have minded sitting there another hour.
What sells the film is the visual marvel of the stop-motion animation. For those that don't know, miniature 3-D models are created of each character, and moved slightly in between frames, which are photographed one by one. The crew would be lucky to get 5 minutes filmed in the span of a week. But it produces such a lovely effect on the screen. You can have 3-D characters that aren't CGI, but still look semi-real, despite their odd shapes and body figures. In fact, in a bit of design irony, the most human looking character, in terms of body dimensions, is Emily. Sure she has decaying flesh and some exposed bones, but she has realistic body features, proportionate length and width with her arms and legs, and has proper posture. The only part of her body that's unrealistic is her long, pointy neck.
The only item of confusion is the ending, which I won't reveal, but it leaves questions as to Burton's universe of the afterlife, which could have been explained away with one more page of dialogue, and a 77th minute of film. But nothing is perfect, and the film does very well, bringing back a visual style we haven't seen in years. Any debates about next year's Oscar winner for Animated Feature must begin and end with this film.