Film Review - Corpse Bride

Having seen and enjoyed 'The Nightmare Before Christmas', I was looking forward to seeing the Corpse Bride; I had read that it was another of Tim Burton's projects - his way of welcoming the audience to his own private view of the world. A view I've always enjoyed (apart from Planet of the Apes, of course). Of all the Batman movies, only Tim Burton's looked like the dark cityscape that the original comic books portrayed. This atmospheric vision repeats itself in many of his movies, and apart from the technical achievement of adding so much life to customarily dark subjects, his camera angles, and his sense of drama define his movies.

This film centres around a wedding between Victor and Victoria, and it starts with a song shared by both the parents. It immediately stamps a light heartedness, and a real sense of Englishness on the movie that I warmed to straight away. One set of parents are nouveau riche, and are marrying off their polite son to a posh girl from a family, who, while dreading the lower classes joining the family, are secretly looking forward to the money they might bring into the fold.

The wedding rehearsal goes badly - Victor stumbles on his lines, and makes a fool of himself. Later that night, when he is on his own, he rehearses his lines to find he has accidentally married a corpse. He gets taken into a world beneath our own where the dead run around in some sort of vaudeville club, singing morbid songs, and generally having a great time. In the struggle to return to his living bride, the mawkish Victor starts to develop feelings for his dead bride, and this complicates the original plans.

This is a highly original plot, and is very amusingly portrayed. The song and dance routines are great fun, and the voices are spot on. A heavyweight cast of voice overs include Johhny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Joanna Lumley, Christopher Lee and so on, and again the Englishness shines through.

I felt the middle section dragged a little bit; obviously at this point, having introduced the characters, and the misery of Victor's situation, he needs the give the characters space to form bonds, and develop a rapport. Maybe it’s because they are puppets that doesn't help the realism of the situation, but the first and last acts are chock full of humorous observation, and seem to flow better.

Technically the film is brilliant; the animation, and even the tiniest facial expressions are captured in detail. The effort needed to produce stop animation films is immense, but no corners have been cut. Again we are thrust into Tim Burton's imagination; and as visions go, this one is pretty compelling. 7/10