Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

Synopsis: When a shy groom practices his wedding vows in the inadvertent presence of a deceased young woman, she rises from the grave assuming he has married her.

Corpse Bride is a return to an elongated claymation world similar to that of The Nightmare Before Christmas, which Burton wrote and produced. It's visually striking with ideas and situations bringing imaginative colour to the grim palette of greys and blues. But it doesn't have a story worth 76 minutes, or a compelling character in sight other than the brief promise of the corpse bride. The plot is so ponderously set up that you may as well step out for a coffee, because so many scenes can be anticipated in advance. And it is liberally dosed with what is marketed as 'children's comedy'. That is, it ain't that funny. It feels like they killed off a few characters from A Bug's Life (including the annoying French one) and Pirates of the Caribbean (well, those guys were already dead), and wrote them into a mélange of filmic moments to see if it would spark something into life.

(Note: Without the benefit of seeing co-director Mike Johnson's animated TV series about a black neighbourhood, The PJs, I'm blaming this film on Tim Burton as he should have known better).

The best original idea is Emily the corpse bride (Helena Bonham-Carter). Recently deceased, she is only selectively decayed (with one skeletal arm, leg, etc) and still rather foxy. She takes her new groom Victor from the grey world of the living into a colourful underworld of cheerful, boozing, dead people. For some reason, however, he is determined to return to his vapid fiancé, Victoria (Emily Watson), whom he only met the day before. So he lies to the essentially sweet-natured Emily, who has just given him a gift of his long-lost puppy (now a lively doggy skeleton), and it's pretty much from that point that I thought Emily could do a lot better.

Emily does however share something in common with her groom and the other woman- breathy voice acting. Unfortunately, this only draws attention to their less than substantial characterization. Other characters in the film are boomed into life with stentorian tones from Albert Finney, Joanna Lumley, Christopher Lee, Tracey Ullman and Richard E. Grant (playing the fiendish Lord Barkis). Sadly, the wealth of voice talent isn't enough to anchor the film.

Burton has amply proven that he has a quirky dark vision in his many films. But he doesn't have a consistent ability to realize the vision with a well-developed story or characters.

 

Want something different?