Movie Talks Archives

Posted by: Desslar at February 4, 2006, 1:37 pm

Topic: Corpse Bride DVD Review: Dead and Married Forum: JoBlo

6/10 Whilst the animation community has been loudly decrying the seeming demise of traditional 2D animation at the hands of flashy 3D CGI, an even more old fashioned art form has been slowly gathering steam. Stop motion, in which physical character models are painstakingly repositioned frame by frame, provided 2005’s two most critically acclaimed animated films, the first being Tim Burton’s macabre romance Corpse Bride. That it was not amongst the year’s very most profitable animated films is unfortunate, but perhaps due to the family audience’s curious preference for zoo animals over maggot-infested cadavers. Loving Burton and stop motion I was thrilled to see Corpse Bride garner so many rave reviews. Alas, I find myself merely liking the film. It is undeniably a monumental technical achievement, marrying highly detailed and smooth animation with Burton’s distinctively deranged visual flair. Just watching the characters interact is enough to bring a smile to the face of animation fans, although not as broad as one might like. Outside of a jazzy dance number in which skeletons cannibalize their brethren to make instruments, the visual imagery is somewhat restrained for Burton. Those who’ve seen Beetlejuice know he is capable of something still more bizarre and ambitious. Regrettably the story and characters ultimately fail to engage the viewer on any significant level. The premise of love between the living and embalmed certainly holds promise, but the execution is surprisingly simple and emotionally shallow for a feature film. It may have done much better as half hour short a la the original Wallace & Gromit adventures. Even still the production is let down by generally dire attempts at comedy and a very modest soundtrack. The story is set in a Victorian town where young and shy Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) is to be betrothed to equally naïve Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson) in an arranged union benefiting their social climber parents. At first apprehensive, they soon take a liking to each other. However when Victor practices his vows in a nearby forest they are taken to heart by the late and partially decomposed Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), who springs from the earth and spirits her groom off to the underworld. Suddenly Victor finds himself torn in a most unconventional love triangle. Meanwhile in town a shadowy figure from Emily’s dark past takes a suspiciously earnest interest in Victoria. Rare in a Burton production, the characters leave little impression. The leads are all nice and noble and not much more. Although Emily is intriguingly creepy at first, before long she is just as tame as Victoria. The parents are all stereotypical upper class snobs, and the underworld denizens curiously generic outside the Peter Lorre-like maggot that inhabits Emily’s skull. Christopher Lee stands out as the stern Pastor Galswells, who becomes increasingly exasperated with Victor’s inability to learn his vows. Lord of the Rings fans will be amused that his performance seems to reference those films, especially when he defends the church from an approaching crowd of the deceased, declaring “Be gone, ye demons from hell. Back to the void from whence you came. You shall not enter here,” much as Gandalf did in a similar scene. There are a few moments in Corpse Bride that really work, such as when Victor and Emily patch things up by playing a touching piano duet, capped off by one of her skeletal hands breaking free in the heat of the moment and dancing across the keyboard. Victor’s first eerie and tense encounter with Emily recalls Ichabod Crane’s flight from the Headless Horseman, and there’s a frenetic swordfight a la Errol Flynn. Perhaps the best chuckle is elicited when the town crier is asked to recount for the parents the tragic news of Victor’s disappearance, after which he cheerily launches into the weather forecast. Overall the “comedy” is hopelessly juvenile and obvious, assailing the audience with groaners such as a bodiless head that predictably introduces itself as the “head waiter.” Burton regular Danny Elfman’s score is pleasant enough and admirably different from his other works, but contains little to keep one humming afterward. The tepid songs fall well short of Disney’s usual standard, if perhaps ahead of Phil Collins. One wonders how young audiences weathered the chorus of skeletons singing, “Die! Die! We all pass away!” Which brings us to the question of the intended audience. Thematically Corpse Bride courts a fairly mature crowd, but sprinkles the material with humor fit for 6 year olds. Burton would have done better to skew the content one way or the other. The special features consist of numerous brief featurettes, of which only Making Puppets Tick is especially gripping. Here we get to see how the puppets were designed, built and manipulated, which involves the turning of screws to move tiny gears inside. Inside the Two Worlds explains the film’s ironic distinction that the colorful land of the dead is livelier than the drab world of the living. For the latter separate puppets were created with a grayish tint. Elsewhere Elfman discusses how he created the score; the crew gushes about stop motion and Burton’s genius, and the actors discuss their roles and record in the studio. Finally there’s a clip of screen tests for the main characters, although sadly no alternate concept art, and a music only audio track for Elfman junkies. Corpse Bride should moderately entertain animation aficionados and whatever small children aren’t camped under their seats, but is too slight to hold the attention of the general public for very long. With luck the relative success of the film will encourage Burton to redouble his efforts to equal his classic The Nightmare Before Christmas. Speaking of redoubling efforts, I feel a sudden urge to find a bride myself. Not so much because the film put me in the mood for love, but because I’m afraid Christopher Lee may pass on before I can get him to perform my wedding.

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