BurtonVision is beating a Dead Bride

Rating: 4/10 (7 February 2006)

Although this movie was beautifully photographed, the art direction topnotch, and I can appreciate the wonderful animation - this film was about as dull, boring and uninspired as it gets. It is rehashed 'BurtonVision' we have seen more than a few times before. It is a simple love story that is most likely a wonderful bedtime story and would have made a better short film than a (barely) feature length movie. The story line was basically interesting, there was just nothing original done with it. The creepy and surreal world of the dead has already been explored in other Burton films so to see it yet again presented in the same way was, well, dead. The dropping body parts of the Bride and the other gruesomely cute characters of the World of the Dead were expected. We got that joke about 15 years ago with 'BeetleJuice' and more recently 'A Nightmare Before Christmas.' I assume it was suppose to be funny but again...it just lacked any originality. Everything in this film is standard. Not big deal. A lot of films are. What sets bad and good films apart is the the filmmakers' ability to switch things up so we see these familiar things as new and exciting.
The characters here are all your basic fairy tale types. Good guy, bad guy, heroine, antagonist, greedy parents, helpful friends aiding you in your journey, etc. Though these characters make up the heart of all stories, in this film they all but had captions telling you when to sneer and applaud. The whole Dead Crowd ganging up on the bad guy at the end. Did we all see that coming? Of course. And that maggot from inside the Bride's head!? First time funny. Second time cute. Third time dead horse.
The lack of creative story telling is not helped by the once again over-produced musical numbers by, Elfman. The the lyrics were impossible to understand (I had the same problem with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and quite frankly all the music Elfman does is starting to sound alike. It is one thing to have a style. It is another to have it difficult to tell what music was from what film. I think Burton needs to reel in Elfman a bit and start setting more of a vision for the music. From what I have read, Burton is giving Elfman freedom to pretty much do what he wants. It is showing. The creative team once joined at the brain are starting to clash. It began a few films ago. Hmmmm. There is always the option (and maybe a positive creative challenge for Burton)to find someone new to score his films.
I love Burton films. Not each and everyone is a great film but I have found something in all of them I liked enough to usually view them a few more times. In this particular Burton outing there was nothing making it worth watching more than once. It would have been nice to get the originality you usually get from a Burton film (good or bad) in the 'Corpse Bride' instead of this old imagery we have seen way too much.