In a repressed society, meek Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) is pushed into a marriage with the surprisingly charming Victoria Everglot (voice: Emily Watson) by his rich and status seeking parents (voices: Paul Whitehouse, Tracey Ullman). Although disgusted by the prospect, the upper-class Everaglots (voices: Albert Finney, Joanna Lumley) have agreed to the arrangement due to their failing finances. After disgracing himself in front of stern Pastor Galswells (voice: Christopher Lee) at the wedding rehearsal, Victor runs off to the woods to practices his lines. Accidentally dropping the wedding ring onto the finger of a corpse at precisely the wrong moment, the Corpse Bride (voice: Helena Bonham Carter) wakes and, assuming they are now married, drags Victor to the land of the dead.
Looking like an Edward Gorey book come to life, and feeling like Gorey merged with Disney, The Corpse Bride is a twisted, macabre fairy tale that turns out to be as light as air and as subversive as mom and apple pie. Sure, there are rotting corpses running about, but they are really friendly rotting corpses that value friendship and family. There are no scares, and not much edge, but it is a charming and beautiful film that will occasionally make you laugh, but more often leave you sitting contentedly with your family around you. This is comfy-old-shoe viewing.
That it looks good is no surprise. When has a Tim Burton film not been a visual feast? And while animator Mike Johnson is listed as co-director, The Corpse Bride positively smells of Burton. It can almost be constructed from piecing together his early films. It has a blue-toned look (like Batman), gothic sensibilities (like Sleepy Hollow), uses elongated puppets (like The Nightmare Before Christmas), presents the afterlife as a wild, colorful show (like Beetle Juice), captures the poignancy in a hopeless relationship between a normal person and a “monster” (like Edward Scissorhands), has music by Danny Elfman (like Big Fish and most of the other), and stars his ladylove Helena Bonham Carter (like Planet of the Apes and two others) and Johnny Depp (like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Ed Wood, and several others). It even directly swipes comedic routines from his earlier films, such as having the lead female’s limbs drop off. And saying that much, I’ve still barely touched on the Burtonesque state of the movie. But don’t think the its cobbled-together nature hurts it. He’s lifted much of the best from those earlier works, and in general, improved upon them. No, it’s not original, but then few movies are.
The biggest advance is in the stop-motion puppetry. With built in motors, so that the characters can move without a human hand, and top figure artisans do the sculpting, these characters make Jack Skellington and his crew look medieval. There’s nothing flat or unemotional about them. They are more expressive than many big-salary actors. The movie is worth your time just to see The Corpse Bride rise out of the ground and walk forward, her veil billowing behind.
To go with the amazing stop-motion animation is an impressive array of voice talent. There are no forgettable cartoon voices here, nor are they outlandishly silly. With the likes of Tracey Ullman, Albert Finney, and the always overwhelming Christopher Lee doing support work, it is astounding that the leads are even noticeable. But Depp and Watson project warmth that is hard to ignore. However, the film belongs to Helena Bonham Carter, who is funny, exuberant, morose, and sexy, often at the same time. And anyone who can manage sexy when her character’s skin is rotting and a worm keeps popping out of her eye socket is doing something right.
But, like a majority of Burton’s movies, he can’t get everything to work. He’s a master of the look, but other areas of filmmaking seem to allude him. In this case, the biggest problem is that this is a musical. Burton did work at Disney for several years, so it was there that he was infected with the notion that anything animated must involve characters suddenly breaking into song. There is no reason for it here, and it takes away from the quirky nature of the piece. This is no jab at musicals. I’m quite a fan, but sometimes, for some stories, no one needs to dance. Additionally, a musical needs great, memorable songs, not ones that are merely pleasant. There is a reason why that mutilation of a fairy tale, The Little Mermaid is a “classic” while the corruption of American history, Pocahontas, is a stain on popular culture. In a musical, the music is everything (thus the clever name of the genre).
Now Danny Elfman is a fine composer of background and theme music, but he is not a man who can write a tune that you can hum. His songs tend to sound alike, and even the ones that display some variety are easy to forget. After Corpse Bride, I was unable to recall a single melody. What is easier to remember is how the film slows whenever anyone sings. Thankfully, there is a bit of the story told in the songs, but nothing that couldn’t have been done quicker, more efficiently, and more enjoyably without a string section.
And without the songs, more focus could have been given to the story, which starts out well, but get bumpy toward the end. In order to wrap things up quickly, we’re presented with one plot contrivance after another. The mere presence of the villain in the story pushes plausibility. His happening to show up in the right place, at the right time, and do the wrong thing is just lazy writing. And to top it off, it all ends far too conventionally. Apparently Burton felt constrained by the Jewish folk tale that is the bases for the film.
Burton has made yet another of his flawed gems, and this time, the sparkle wins out. It should holdup well over time and to many viewings.
And a trivia note: As an homage to the master of stop-motion animation, Victor and Victoria play a duet on a piano which is clearly labeled as a Harryhausen. Ray Harryhausen was the unchallenged champion of the technique, which he used to great affect in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Jason and the Argonauts (1963), and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), to name only a few.