Disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (16 September 2005)

I am perplexed by the over-exuberance of those who have voted on this film. I have a feeling many have voted before actually seeing it.
The movie is... fine. It's really nothing exceptional. Nightmare Before Christmas blows this out of the water when it comes to character development, complexity of animation and story telling.
Corpse Bride was cute, nice, cliché. While it started with a strong promise and premise, with a glowing gray world with family characters, all went wacky when Victor went into the forest. This is about where you wish you were in the forest with Jack instead.
Unlike those you meet in Halloweentown, the dead characters are not interesting, all either blue or bones. The humor and puns are forced and repeated, in case you didn't get that pulling the sword out of the dead dwarf was funny the first, second, third, fourth or fifth time.
The songs were great in the beginning, sparse and annoying in the middle. At times, the sound effects were louder than the lines themselves, so lyrics of the songs and/or punchlines couldn't be deciphered.
The bride character was so one-dimensional that I didn't care about her, until her act about how she wishes she were alive -- a touching song there. Interestingly, Victoria, through just her "acting" seemed more developed than any of the other characters, save for Victor.
Some of the characters' actions were less than motivated. Victor suddenly going from uninterested to willing-to-marry because of sharing a 20-second piano duet with Corpse Bride? The Parents obsessed with finding Victor, then just disappearing out of the story?
What saved this film for me was the ending, which, while predictable, was so heart-warming and honest... Great 1st and 3rd act does not a good film make.
I don't want to be negative. I'm about as big of a Tim Burton / Danny Elfman fan as anyone else, (sans freakish obsessions or those who think Jack Skellington is some evil bad ass I need to buy on a t-shirt at the mall so my parents will see what a rebel I am), but this movie was little more exciting than Frosty The Snow Man. I didn't hate it. But it wasn't worth my midnight premiere.
You might say, "Oh, this is a children's film. It doesn't need character development, a logical story or interesting songs."
To that I might say, "Shut up."
This film will soon be forgotten, like James and The Giant Peach, whereas masterworks like Big Fish, Batman and Nightmare Before Christmas will live on forever.
Thanks for reading.