TIM BURTON'S CORPSE BRIDE

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Warner Bros
Grade: B+
Directed by: Mike Johnson, Tim Burton
Written by: John August, Carolyn Thompson, Pamela Pettler
Cast: Voices of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily
Watson, Tracey Ullman, Paul Whitehouse, Joanna Lumley,
Albert Finney
Screened at: Loews Kips Bay, NYC, 9/13/05

Tim Burton gives new meaning to that perennial male
complaint, "My wife/girlfriend just lies there like a corpse." In
this dark yet amusing narrative of necrophilia–except that in this upside-down world it’s the corpse that wants to make it with a living person–Tim Burton’s signature atmosphere is pervasive. In yet another example of reversals, the parts that take place in the living world are monochromatic, blossoming into full color when characters descend into the Land of the Dead.

“Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” is a fanciful tale with action and dialogue that proceed with scarcely a breath, an animated look at the corseted Victorian world of rigid class distinctions and an uptight moral code that forbids a man and woman to be together in a room without a chaperone even when they are to marry the very next day. Co-directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton, the stop-motion extravaganza is peppered with Danny Elfman’s songs and music, a diverse batch of vocals aping the styles of Gilbert & Sullivan, Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber. If you listen closely you’ll hear strains such as this one–which could make you think twice about taking your 8-year-olds:

“Die, die, we all pass away/ But don’t wear a frown cause it’s really O.K./ You might try and hide and you might try and pray/ But we all end up the remains of the day.”

Fans of Tim Burton will readily see similarities with his other stop-motion pic, the 1993 “Nighmare Before Christmas”–about the Pumpkin King, who tires of the old routine in Halloween Town and falls in love with Christmas instead–unaware that his scary type may not be welcome during the December festivities.

If you look closely you’ll note that some of the animated figures look like the people who give them voice. Some kids will recognize Johnny Depp, whose puppet takes on the role of Victor Van Dort, and a select audience will discover Helena Bonham Carter as the title Corpse Bride. The location of the action is not specified, though the culture is that of Victorian England. The Land of the Living is an awful place, one that justifies the use of black-and-white photography. John August, Caroline Thompson and Pamela Pettler’s story takes us first to the Land of the Living, where Victor (Johnny Depp) is a shy, bumbling artist, a great pianist who is too klutzy to fit into polite society, given the way he perpetually bumps into obstacles and knocks things over. His parents, Nell Van Dort (Tracey Ullman) and William Van Dort (Paul Whitehouse) are determined to move their son up from their own bourgeois merchant class by marrying him to Victoria (Emily Watson). Victoria’s parents, Maudeline Everglot (Joanna Lumley) and Finis Everglot (Albert Finney) are aristocrats without a dime to their name but as was common in Victorian society, the aristos look down their noses at the upstarts. (Of the various gags, puns and insults that will go above the heads of the kids in the audience is Finis Everglot’s expressing his contempt for the “nouveau riches” who are meeting to plan the marriage.) While the marriage is arranged, the parents are shocked to discover that Victor and Victoria genuinely like each other, particularly since Victoria is even shyer than her groom-to-be. But when Victor practices his vows in the woods nearby, placing the wedding band on a twig, he unfortunately raises the dead in the form of the good-looking corpse bride (Helena Bonham Carter). She pulls him down into the Land of the Dead where Victor discovers far more “life” going down than he’d ever met upstairs, including a bar, a barking, skeletal dog, a head without a body, some hip musicians who play New Orleans jazz, even a maggot who from time to time peers out from the corpse bride’s right eye.

With deft animation, a festival of song and music, and puppets you can actually care about, “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” is attuned to an adult audience and to those kids who discover that some things that go bump in the night are really cool.

Rated PG. 77 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online