Beautiful, but Just a Little Dead

Rating: 8/10 (25 September 2005)

3 Stars (out of 4)
Tim Burton's newest film, The Corpse Bride, is all style. And it's a very inviting style at that. But like most Burton films, it lacks a little in the narrative. The film stars Johnny Depp as Victor, a young man betrothed to Victoria (Emily Watson). On the day of the wedding rehearsal when they both first meet they fall in love with one another, but Victor, being the clumsy person that he is, angers the priest who is trying to wed them because he just can't get his vows right (and accidentally sets Victorias mother on fire), and in distress after failing to impress Victoria he takes a walk. On this walk he practices his vows, and on the one time he gets it right he places the ring on the finger of what he thinks is a branch of a tree, but in reality its the hand of the Corpre Bride (Helena Bohnam Carter). Thus he is now married to a dead woman.
Its generally difficult to comment on the acting in an animated film, but all the acting is fairly good, none of them stand out much though aside from Bohnam Carter, who shines as the unhinged, and falling apart Emily. The film is filled with some toe tapping songs, especially the number performed in the tavern in the world of the dead, telling the story of Emily the Corpse Bride, but for the most part the songs are not nearly as memorable as those of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The Corpse Bride, however, excels in comedy and visual style. Namely any scenes involving the members of the underworld are the most entertaining, with some of the dead characterized by how they died (chopped in half, shot through stomach, stabbed, decapitated, etc.).
But the films weakness is its story. The setup is the strongest point, but shortly after we learn the legend of the Corpse Bride the movie gets stuck in a rut, and doesn't really seem to go anywhere. The characters mostly just walk around and do nothing to further the story at all, and the little movement that the story does go in is fairly secondhand. The biggest problem though is that the villain of the movie almost seems tacked on, and there is so little confrontation with him that he hardly even seems necessary at any point of the story. The good news is that the lack of story hard to notice because the movie does a good job of distracting us with such visual richness.
Overall The Corpse Bride is a beautifully rich film, but just misses out on excellence because the story just doesn't really go anywhere. But for those waiting for another clay animation film they don't have to wait long, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the WereRabbit comes out in two weeks...