An inspired, beautiful tale of melancholy romance

Rating: 8/10 (27 October 2005)

Acclaimed director Tim Burton's latest venture into the world of stop-motion animation, a world with which he has long been acquainted with, is an inspired, beautiful tale of melancholy romance. Don't let the creepy title of this macabre musical throw you off. Granted, this kind of film may not be for all tastes, but if you can get past the ghoulish appearance of the film and are game for a wondrous, haunting world of fantasy and love, then this is the movie for you.
Although deriving from a relatively simple screenplay by John August, Pamela Pettler and Caroline Thompson, Corpse Bride showcases characters that are well etched and constructed, and that are able to form a very strong, emotional bond with the audience. We truly feel for Emily, the Corpse Bride, whose heart was broken once before and is threatened to be broken again, by Victor, who wants to leave the World of the Dead and return to his love, Victoria. We sympathize with Victoria who, while waiting for her true love Victor to return, is being forced to wed another man by her desperate parents. And we feel for Victor, of course, for having to face this awful dilemma and choose one of the two brides. While I won't give away the conclusion, I will mention that the film's finale is one of the most beautiful scenes I've seen in an animated film. The final shot is a wondrous, memorable end, reminiscent of the melancholy ends of some of Disney's greatest films.
The animation is, of course, top notch. It is virtually seamless, fluent and full of motion and energy. The characters and figures move as in real life. The animators have clearly put a lot of effort into even the tiniest of details, such as the billowing of the Corpse Bride's dress, or the way her and Victor's hair move when they walk or swing their heads. The characters themselves are beautifully designed, every character having distinct traits that truly define it. Much detail has gone even into the tiniest background character. It is certainly a giant leap from the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials of the 1960s, or Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion monsters, which influenced Burton to begin work with stop-motion animation in the first place. It is even a technical leap from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Burton's previous feature-length stop-motion masterpiece, from 1993. What's for sure, Corpse Bride is a beautiful rebuke to the current trend of 3D computer animation, started by Pixar in 1995 with Toy Story.
The voice work is also excellent. Johnny Depp (Victor) tones down his usual eccentric acting and delivers a simple, quiet, innocent performance in a perfect British accent. Helena Bonham Carter (The Corpse Bride), Burton's fiancé for four years now, also delivers a wonderful performance, and proves her singing talents as she sings her heart out in one of the musical numbers. The other cast members, including Emily Watson (Victoria), Albert Finney (Finnis Everglot, Victoria's father), Tracey Ullman (Nell Van Dort, Victor's mother) and Christopher Lee (Pastor Galswells) to name a few, are quite effective at bringing their characters to life.
As with The Nightmare Before Christmas, Burton and his art and set design team paint two distinctly different worlds in the film, both an amazing visual achievement and absolutely gorgeously designed. In The Nightmare Before Christmas, these two worlds are Halloween Town and Christmas Town. In Corpse Bride they are the World of the Living and the World of the Dead. Ironically, it is the World of the Dead that is colorful and lively, while the World of the Living is painted in austere, lifeless mutes of gray. With the World of the Living, Burton paints a Victorian Nightmare, a pale, lifeless, Gothic wonderland with muted colors bordering on gray-scale and large, somber, cold yet beautifully dark set pieces. Such design is by now considered a trademark of Burton, and is expected of him after appearing in his previous films such as Edward Scissorhands, the two Batman films, and Sleepy Hollow. The other world, the World of the Dead, is livelier, the sets full of color and crammed with detail and character. In the World of the Dead, the design team create a colorful world of decaying flesh, decomposition, and a wonderful, merry good time of singing and dancing. The decaying yet colorful characters, figures and streets are absolutely brilliantly designed.
The music is yet another element of this film to praise. Danny Elfman, longtime collaborator of Tim Burton's (he scored all of Burton's films from his first and up until this one, except for Ed Wood), continues his trend of writing and performing songs for Burton's movies (he has previously done so for The Nightmare Before Christmas and, recently, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). His nifty little songs are really quite enjoyable, the highlight of them being a song titled "Remains of the Day", a pure, jazzy number Elfman clearly enjoyed composing  he even sang the song himself. As expected, the musical score of the film, aside from the songs, is powerfully atmospheric and reaches peaks of true composing brilliance at times.
To sum it all up, Corpse Bride is whimsical but eerie, funny but melancholy. If The Nightmare Before Christmas was a Christmas-tainted pop number, Corpse Bride is a waltz  an elegant, romantic, melancholy tale, an ode to love and sacrifice. This film doesn't only have everything I look for in an animated film, but also everything that I look for from a Tim Burton film. I'm convinced that, with time, this film will become a classic like The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's an instant classic in my book, a surefire contender for being crowned the Best Animated film of the year, and a film like nothing else at the movies these days.