It was OK

Rating: 6/10 (1 October 2005)

Tim Burton's second stop-motion animation movie (following "The Nightmare Before Christmas"). Meek, mild and VERY thin Victor Van Dort (voice of Johnny Depp) is going to marry beautiful Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson)...but he's not sure if he's ready for marriage. He (accidentally) puts his wedding ring on the finger of a skeleton's hand. This reanimates the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter) who assumes he wants to marry her! And it's a musical too! As you can see this is pretty silly--but stories are never very strong in Tim Burton movies. The visuals are the first concern and they ARE incredible. The animation is flawless--the characters move fluidly and some of the sets are really incredible. There's also tons of visual gags (my favorite is when Victor tells the skeleton dog to roll over...and play dead) and the songs are actually not bad--the score from Danny Elfman is great and there's a skeleton song and dance that stops the movie. But I didn't really like it.
I found it slow...even at 75 minutes (I dozed off at one point!) and all the sets are (purposely) very gloomy in dark colors--the film looks like it was shot in black & white at times. It fit the story but started to wear down on me--I was getting depressed! The jokes really don't work--some do but most just sit there. The total lack of logic in the plot began to annoy me--there was a twist at the end that I thought was particularly contrived. However the voices DID fit the characters and it was interesting to look at. But I need more than visuals to keep me interested. If you're a Tim Burton fan you'll probably love this--but I can only truthfully give it a 6.