With a gothic feel and brilliant stop-motion animation, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride captures all the music and style established in The Nightmare Before Christmas, and delivers a movie with plenty of laughs that is entertaining for both adults and kids.
The film is set in a 19th century European village and follows the story of Victor (voiced by Johnny Depp) who is taken to the underworld when he accidentally finds himself married to the Corpse Bride (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter). The Bride finds her husband after he is in the woods practicing his vows for his upcoming marriage to Victoria (voiced by Emily Watson), and quickly takes him underground to keep that ring on her bony finger.
Victor finds himself trapped in a world best described as Tim Burton’s imagination gone wild – filled with skeletons, people who died badly, strange colors and lots of music. This underworld is filled with strange creatures – including Victor’s dead dog Scraps and a maggot that looks and sounds a lot like Peter Lorre– that will keep kids laughing. While down there, Victor realizes he actually does love his real bride Victoria and struggles to figure out a way to return to the land of the living and get out of his marriage to a corpse.
While this is going on, the Corpse Bride, who was killed while waiting on her “love” to come and elope with her, tries to figure out a way to make Victor want to stay with the undead, and deal with the fact that he really doesn’t want to be married to her (she blames it on the fact her eye keeps falling out).
Victor finds himself married, but to the wrong bride
Back in the land of the living, Victoria, whose parents are trying to marry her off to stay out of the poor house, finds herself promised to a slimy older widower who seems to have more than one reason for wanting to marry her. She is also the only person who believes in Victor and knows the truth about his being kidnapped to the underworld. This takes her to the door of Pastor Galswell (voiced by the legendary Christopher Lee) – who quickly proclaims the girl is mad and tells her parents to lock her away.
When Victor learns of Victoria’s upcoming new marriage, he decides that his fate is already sealed and agrees to marry the Corpse Bride for real and spend the rest of his life (umm death) in the underworld with her. To do this, the dead must rise and Victor has to say his vows and drink a potion that will take his life. This brings a fun and laugh-filled ending with the dead being reunited with the living and the Corpse Bride coming face to face with the man who killed her.
Although some of the movie is a bit slow at times, the film’s pace keeps moving (it is only 77 minutes long), and makes sure to throw in plenty of music and strange characters to keep the audience from getting bored – if that is possible in a movie so rich with great animation and filming.
The songs are not quite as catchy as Nightmare Before Christmas, but some will make you laugh while tapping your foot. The barroom song “Remains of the Day” is hysterical and the skeleton jazz band will leave you in stitches. The music, which has all the trademarks we expect from Danny Elfman, helps create the world that we are being sucked into, and keeps you under that spell until the film’s credits roll.
The movie has some great and unusual characters
The movie does have a few moments that might be a bit scary for younger kids, but Burton and co-director Mike Johnson never go overboard with the scenes. They also make sure that any scary moment is followed up with some fun to keep kids watching the movie. This is a film that they know how to make, and know how to make it entertaining even if it is dealing with a plot that has a man marrying a corpse.
The DVD comes loaded with special features that fans of Tim Burton, the movie, and stop-animation will love. They include detailed looks at how they made the movie and designed each element of the film.
The features include several special features, such as Making Puppets Tick and The animators: The Breath of Life, that take you into how an animator approaches a project of this size, and the skills it takes to make a movie like Corpse Bride. They also take you inside to the talent needed to bring the characters to life through a look at the voice actors involved in the movie. This gives you an idea of what actors have to go through to make their voices match the character and the character’s world.
The DVD also comes with an isolated music score that fans of Danny Elfman will enjoy, and a look at how Elfman crafted the music to fit Burton’s unique world. The isolated music may not be something of interest to everyone, but Elfman’s music makes it a worthy addition to the DVD.
Corpse Bride has some great music that will keep you laughing
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride takes you on a dark and gothic ride that is entertaining, funny, and filled with great characters. The movie may have a few scares for kids, but the music and stop-animation make it worth watching and on level with what has come before it –such as A Nightmare Before Christmas. I would highly recommend it to any fan of stop-animation, Tim Burton, or any parent wanting a movie that you can watch and enjoy with your kids. This movie is simply fun and worth watching.
Corpse Bride is available at Amazon . It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a Feb. 6th release date. Visit the DVD’s database for more information.
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