Tim Burton's Corpse Bride Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

tim burton does it again....

i love tim burton films particularly when johnny depp is starring in them, so i could not wait to see this film. i was not disappointed it is amazing. it has a gothic feel to it, but still is witty and has an emotional edge to it. johnny depp is brilliant as the voice of the hapless hero, and the song and dance routines are fabulous.

this is well worth renting out.

Dead Funny

It is the sign that a filmmaker has truly reached auteur status when his name prefixes the title of the feature. This, his twelfth feature film, everything about Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride is Burton-esque whilst proving remarkably fresh and fun. Arguably better than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory released only a few months ago to massive box office returns.

Corpse Bride tells the macabre tale of Vincent Van Dort (voiced by Burton alumni Johnny Depp) who unwittingly marries a dead lady (voiced by a quirky Helena Bonham-Carter) and his ensuing attempt to escape and get back to his true love (voiced by a very sweet Emily Watson) without hurting the cadaver’s feelings.

The stop motion animation is sublime, with character design that wouldn’t look out of place among Burton’s book of gothic tales, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy.

Interestingly the look of the film is a reverse of another Burton film, Beetle Juice. Instead of the afterlife being depicted as grey and blue contrasted with the living world being bright and sunny, in Corpse Bride the reverse is true.

On the downside the story is fairly predictable, catering more for a younger audience, but this adds to the familiar nature of the film, seeming more like a gothic fairy tale like Edward Scissorhands or Sleepy Hollow. The four musical numbers in the film are also a let down, with the quieter piano solos performed by the two main characters much more effective.