“Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” (Warner Brothers)
“Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” is another stop action animated movie as was his “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” This time the story is a better one and the characters are more inviting, but as with “Nightmare” the process of stop action grows tiring before the movie ends.
The plot concerns a young man named Victor Van Dort (voiced by Johnny Depp) who is a bit of a nerd. His family has no social standing but does have money. A marriage has been arranged between him, and Victoria Everglot (voiced by Emily Watson). The Everglots have social standing but no money.
Victoria and Victor meet on the day of their wedding rehearsal and things do not go as planned. Victor keeps stumbling over his vows, which so exasperates the priest that he orders Victor out of the church until he can do a better job of it.
Victor wanders off mumbling his vows to himself. He recites them and places the wedding ring on a twig, or at least he thinks it is a twig. Suddenly the twig is attached to a body, and the body belongs to a “corpse bride” (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter). She claims she and Victor are now wed and rushes him off to her world – the world of the dead.
The rest of the movie is spent with Victor trying to find a way to undo what has been done. Depp is very good at giving voice to Victor’s agony and frustration but any vocal actor could have done as well. Attaching “stars” to these voices does not add anything to the effect of the film.
The dialogue is clever and often humorous. There are also some unique songs composed by Danny Elfman that surprisingly move the plot along. The whole look and feel of the movie is inventive, but again that stop action motif is tiring.
The film is rated PG for mild profanity and scary situations.
A lot of energy and effort went into this film and for the most part it succeeds in being worth the effort. Still why not just make a movie with live actors rather than going through this contrived stop action thing A film starring Johnny Depp, Emily Watson and Helena Bonham Carter in the flesh would have been much more enjoyable.
I scored “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” a risen 6 out of 10.
