A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: The Corpse Bride

Date Viewed: 9/24/05

Details:

Voice talent: Johnny Depp (Victor Van Dort)

Helena Bonham Carter (Corpse Bride)

Emily Watson (Victoria Everglot)

Tracey Ullman (Nell Van Dort / Hildegarde)

Joanna Lumley (Maudeline Everglot)

Albert Finney (Finnis Everglot)

Christopher Lee (Pastor Galswells)

Michael Gough (Elder Gutknecht)

Danny Elfman (Bonejangles)

Directors: Tim Burton & Mike Johnson

Score: +1/2

The Review: A romantic comedy twisted as only Tim Burton can; a stop-action animated musical; a mystery with murder most foul; a home for lost and bewildered Edward Gorey characters. This is a Victorian tale of an arranged marriage, caricatures of rich and nouveau-rich families, a hesitant bride (Watson), a bumbling groom (Depp) and the underworld -- no, not organized crime, the real underworld of the dead. Well, as "real" as a Tim Burton animation can be, which is pretty good.

One could call this The Nightmare Before Christmas, Part 2. There's the same animation methodology, the same stylized verticality of character design, similar dark theme, similar pets, the same musical director and sound (the wonderful Danny Elfman) -- but it's much better. The earlier Nightmare stumbles as the film proceeds, and loses a lot of its punch in the midst of trying to be overly arch and satiric. Such excesses are not found here. In Corpse Bride, there is instead a dissimilar interface between the world of the dead and that of the "soft", and while some of the characters would be equally at home in both films, the mood here is more even, and it doesn't overreach in the satiric dimension. And they've managed to make a partially defleshed corpse rather alluringly beautiful (Carter).

The cartoon cinematography is almost monochrome, but not quite. It's mostly muted nighttime colors, with occasional flashes of saturation almost like that used to good effect in Sin City. Character design is clever, and there are several plot turns that add to its appeal.

And then there's the music: for not liking the traditional format of the "musical," I found the score and songs of Corpse Bride amusing and fitting. In many ways canonical -- the misunderstood hero, the misunderstood heroine, the quandary over a difficult decision, the revenge theme -- the lyrics echoed those of both traditional Disney and untraditional Nightmare. In some ways, they were more interesting and less erratic in mood than Nightmare: catchy, hum-able, cute, sometimes amusing.

Some excellent visual puns (watch for "Harryhausen") and a continuous trickle of humor ("Gone with the Wind"). And for a bit of crossover from either the small screen (or the large book, depending on whether you've sampled Masterpiece Theatre or his books), one of the Edward Gorey characters has left the pages of his pen-and-ink cartoons and has a walk-on part: the wide-eyed confused-looking youth of indeterminate age.

Recommended and fun. I can see this becoming a Halloween favorite and displacing my repetitious viewing of Nightmare while answering the trick-or-treat doorbells.

(25-Sep-05)

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