Unworthy Successor to Nightmare

Rating: 6/10 (12 November 2005)

My apologizes to Tim Burton fans but this movie is a pale successor to Nightmare Before Christmas (one of my all time favorites). The music and lyrics aren't even close to the beautiful tunes and rhymes of Nightmare and the plot is thin. What I found most disappointing was the absence of interesting side characters. Nightmare was chock full of hilarious characters from the Mayor to Dr. Finkelstein to the wonderfully varied children. After leaving the theatre I was hard pressed to come up with a single memorable side character from Corpse Bride.
I'd probably have a better opinion of this flick if I did not have Nightmare to compare it to. I'm reminded of the many times a new band has released a master piece 1st album and struggled to follow it with a comparable second. It could be that Nightmare set the bar so high as to jade my opinion of Burton's further adventures in stop motion musicals. I do however, hope he continues to try.