There's No Bride Like A Corpse Bride

Rating: 5/10 (24 July 2013)

Believe me, I really wanted to like Corpse Bride a whole lot, but I only liked it just a little.
Almost right off the bat I realized just how bored and, yes, tired I've grown of Tim Burton's dark, dank visions and all of their prevailing morbidity. I'd say that it's definitely time for Burton to take off those frickin' morticians spectacles (or whatever it is that he wears to view the world) and turn his gaze away from what's grave and gloomy, to look up towards the sunlight for a change of pace.
Corpse Bride's story was supposed to be set in 19th Century Europe, but, naturally, with Danny Elfman's predictably recyclable musical score (I swear I heard strains of the Spiderman theme, and others, weaving their way through the soundtrack), a ridiculous American-style, pop/jazz finger-snapper (that included an elaborate dance routine) was carelessly thrown into the musical mix for good measure.
What struck me as really quite odd about Corpse Bride's story was the exaggerated emphasis that was put on all of the "liveliness" that takes place down in the Land of the Dead. Yeah. Things down below the earth were definitely about 100 times more "lively" than anything that was taking place in the Land of the Living.
And, I asked myself - Like, was this supposed to be some sort of a screwy message, telling me that when it comes to "living-it-up" we're all better off dead? - 'Cause, hey, folks, death is when the real partying starts.
And if things weren't disappointing enough as it is, there was no denying that Corpse Bride's whole storyline was terribly wonky and disjointed, like you wouldn't believe. And, what's more, the entire effect of the stop-motion animation was so dazzlingly slick and seamless that it looked identical to CGI, which, in a way, defeated the whole idea of stop-motion.
Yep. As far as I'm concerned, Corpse Bride was better off dead than alive.
And, that's that!