Walks a fine line between well paced and dragging

Rating: 5/10 (2 October 2005)

If there is one word to describe this film it is "cute." Corpse Bride is a movie that tries to appeal to everyone perhaps due to its bizarre subject matter. In fact it goes out of its way not to offend anyone (particularly Christian conservatives) as you may notice no crosses in the church (which would offend all religions in some way), marriage in itself is not necessarily mocked and neither is the idea of death. It's not quite a kids film nor an adult film so I was wondering who would this appeal to? The fact that such major talent is attached is probably the main reason this film has done well so far.
Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad film but the musical numbers seem a bit forced and were extremely tough to hear (it could have been my theater but the most important story of how the girl died was unclear as a result), not to mention nothing was particularly memorable in terms of lyrics. Also a lot of the scenes came close to dragging or stretching out as much as possible, despite an extremely short runtime for a feature.
But aside from all of this there were 2 major things I disliked: the very abrupt ending in which the corpse bride "completes her purpose" (a very Catholic notion of limbo thus my above comments for Christian conservatives) and the two living lovers watch as she dissipates up to heaven and then THAT'S IT?! I think this film needed just one more scene of resolution - mainly to show their parents' reactions since they never return to the picture and figure in pretty heavily throughout otherwise. (Unless this is one of those films that has a "secret scene" to reward those for watching the credits). Also my other issue was why did the Lord who married Victoria wanted to kill her? After all she had explained her family was penniless and it's not like he could gain anything from her death. Was he just a crazy murderer of brides? (In that case I wasn't quite clear if he was the one who killed the corpse bride as well, hence see my comments on lack of clarity in song).
Well it's not a bad film, I wouldn't pay to see it in theaters again but wouldn't not recommend it either. If I had kids I'd think they have to be at least 8 or 9 to see it since some of the subjects are dark and could be scary. I guess I had higher hopes after seeing Nightmare before Christmas. Not a bad Burton/Elfman/Depp picture but not the best either.
5/10 Meh.