Cautious thumbs up.

Rating: 7/10 (3 October 2005)

Well thought, very entertaining picture, done much the same way as Burton's smash, Nighhtmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride will get applause everywhere it's watched. If there's a movie Tim's directed that hasn't been critically acclaimed, let me know. Get ready for music, wit, charm but ... and it's a big but, be also prepared for spiders, maggots and a serious storyline that might leave people scratching their heads at the end.
A musical opens the movie explaining the son of a rich merchant family and the daughter of high class paupers are arranging to marry off their kids to save themselves. Victor and Victoria seem fine with each other, but after a botched rehearsal the groom to be practices his vows to a tree stump, only for it to accept them in the form of a corpse in a wedding gown.
I enjoyed the characters in Corpse Bride. There is a kind of realism on how Emily and Victoria relate to Victor, and each other, that keep the movie going. That's not to dismiss the dead, all of whom own the movie, which I guess is the dramatic irony throughout the Corpse Bride: the afterlife is bursting with more liveliness than the living! Burton however, takes the Corpse Bride much more seriously than I would have expected, reminding us that Emily's ending was, and would, as bittersweet as the movie itself. I was thoroughly entertained, but aside from those determined to see the movie anyway, I would not know who to recommend the movie to.