Highly average

Rating: 6/10 (22 October 2005)

Animated Death never looked so good, but felt so dull. After over a decade of waiting for something as glorious and fun as The Nightmare Before Christmas I walked out of the theater last night feeling like a kid at Christmas who got a new bike with no tires. I'm left thinking either my expectations could have been too high or this movie just fell short of its intended mark.
The movie and the animation are gorgeous, though it looks far too much like Nightmare to avoid comparisons and invoke expectations. The story is fairly basic and gets going pretty fast. Victor (Depp) is set to marry Victoria (Watson) in an arranged marriage. Victor is a nervous wreck about it and is a very jittery fellow. He doesn't have cold feet so much as nervous hands. Victoria is a flower in a family of poisonous weeds. She knows her duty and after meeting Victor seems very much taken with him. Its Victors nervous hands that set things in motion; while practicing his vows he mistaken places the ring on the finger of a murdered bride. From there the movie heads off into regular Tim Burton territory with fun creepy characters and imagery as Victor is pulled into the after life. Much like the world of Beetlejuice the dead walk, talk, sing, dance and are examples of how they died.
The rest of the movie Victor is trying to get out of this world and back to his living girlfriend above ground. Meanwhile Victoria's parents find another suitor to replace the clumsy Victor. Once Victor learns of her new brothel he surrenders to something that's been right in front of him; He's got a wife and despite her being dead is really quite charming. He promises his love and consents to a ceremony to finalize their vows (and his beating heart). This is where the movie really shines. The dead return to the land of the living for this wedding of the afterlife. As the dead run amok and revisit old loved ones we get the only glimpse into the charm and fun Nightmare had.
While the movie is actually pretty good and it is entertaining I think aside from letting expectations get in the way this movie suffers from two glaring faults; The songs and the lack of charm. The songs are like dead finger nails on a chalkboard none of them are as witty are fun as they should be to lighten such a dark movie. The lack of charm is something you wouldn't expect in a movie with Johnny Depp and Emily Watson, to say nothing of the rest of this great cast.
I wanted this movie to succeed in so many ways, I love stop animation, I enjoy it even more when it's not all cutesy and has a plot. I want to see more studios pulling away from CGI animated movies and investing in such craft-work as films like Nightmare showed it could be again.