Tim Burton's valentine to animation is an inspired mix of his greatest hits

Rating: 8/10 (27 September 2005)

CORPSE BRIDE (2005) *** (ANIMATED: VOICES OF: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Albert Finney, Joanna Lumley, Richard E. Grant, Tracey Ullman, Paul Whitehouse, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Jane Horrocks, Enn Reitel, Deep Roy, Danny Elfman. Tim Burton's valentine to animation is an inspired mix of his greatest hits (a bit of "Beetlejuice" here and a lot of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" there) with Depp as a Victorian aged young man named Victor (uncannily looking like Depp himself) betrothed to Watson's Victoria but accidentally finds himself married to Bonham Carter (whose character is a mélange of Angelina Jolie, Penelope Cruz and Burton's former real-life squeeze Lisa Marie) when he invokes his vows unknowingly at her grave resulting in their marriage of inconvenience. The true star is the amazing stop-motion animation that Burton has concocted with co-director Mike Johnson and the production design by frequent collaborator Alex McDowell and Nelson Lowry's art direction where the bleak black and white is for the living and the candied colored hues for the dead is inspiring to say the least.