Review of Corpse Bride (2005) by Sergio E — 11 May 2011

The Corpse Bride: I've spent so long in the darkness, I'd almost forgotten how beautiful the moonlight is.

I always get a little fed up about musicals but this one had the mad genius Danny Elfman along with it and he was part of the cast also so this movie really ended up not being musically boring! Don't let the creepy title of this animated, musical tale throw you off. In the tradition of other excellent, animated features of recent years, The Corpse Bride will surely rank as one of the best. Granted, this kind of film may not be for all tastes, but if you can get past the title and are game for a wondrous, haunting world of fantasy and love, then this is your meal ticket.

Victor and his parents meet Victoria and her family to attend a wedding rehearsal. Unbeknownst to Victor's family, it seems Victoria's parents are broke and desperately need the marriage to secure their future. Yet, marriage is new to the nervous Victor, and when he gets jittery at the church, he runs off and into the woods to collect his thoughts. There, he jokingly recites his wedding vows and slips his wedding band on a finger shaped piece of what appears to be wood. The next thing he knows, the wooden finger is a real finger belonging to a former bride, and she has sprung 'alive' to his offer of marriage. As Victor reels in horror and confusion at his 'corpse bride', he is whisked away to another world of people who have died. While the corpse bride is partly decomposed, she retains much of her former beauty. Yet others in this strange land are mere skeletons and rotted flesh. It turns out that the corpse bride was to be married, but her groom had evil plans for her. She has been waiting for her true love ever since her demise. Meanwhile, Victoria's parents are approached by a mysterious, handsome suitor who wants to marry Victoria. Victor must make a fateful decision and choose between the two brides even as the dead descend on the land of the living for a wedding ceremony like none other. One groom and two brides-what to do? This is Tim Burton's latest foray into stop motion animation, and he and Mike Johnson direct with economy from a relatively simple screenplay by John August, Pamela Pettler, and Caroline Thompson. The characters, especially Victor and the corpse bride, are well etched and create an emotional bond with the audience. Although we want Victor to marry his love Victoria, we grow to feel sympathy and attachment to the corpse bride as well. As for the images of the dead, Burton and company do a delightful job of making what, on the outset, could be grotesque and turning them into energized, playful souls. There is a terrific Peter Lorre homage with a worm who keeps popping in and out of the bride's eye socket. After a short time, the skeletal limbs and discolored dead no longer seem frightening or gross. Ironically the most colorful sequences involve the world of the dead while the living are painted in austere, lifeless mutes of gray.

Much of the production team are veterans of other Burton films. Longtime collaborator Danny Elfman again provides an atmospheric score and a handful of nifty, little songs to move things along. Even the voices of the principals are Burton alumni, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter (Burton's significant other). Give Depp credit for voicing a British sounding character convincingly while others like Emily Watson, Albert Finney, Christopher Lee and Tracey Ullman, to name a few, are quite effective at bringing their figures to life. It's a testament to Burton's imaginative appeal that twice the usual number of major acting talents contributed to this work.

For all those who loved Burton's earlier produced efforts, The Nightmare Before Christmas (whose ghoulish nature is quite similar) and James and the Giant Peach, this is a worthy followup. The animation itself is virtually seamless, and the characters and figures move as in real life. It is a far cry from the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials of the 1960's. The set designs and costumes are very much Gothic in style. It seems that Burton is drawing from his own films or is perpetuating his influences as evidenced in his previous films like Beetlejuice, Batman, and Edward Scissorhands particularly in his obsession with the good and evil in man. It also delves into the perception of life versus death. Who is really alive and who acts like the nonliving? It is evident that the true antecedent of The Corpse Bride is Burton's own version of Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow with a nod toward Dickens (with its contrast in class distinction and its unsavory characters), especially the Miss Havisham character in Great Expectations.

The final shot is a wondrous, memorable end that recalls the transformation scene in Disney's classic, Beauty and the Beast. In fact, so good is its animation and technique that it is easy to forgive any shortcomings in what is basically a one act, one note story albeit told with sincerity. With just a bit more pathos and storyline, Burton's team would have had an instant classic.

The film is set in an unspecified Victorian British village. Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp), son of a nouveau riche merchant, and Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson), daughter of bankrupt aristocrats, are engaged by their families to marry. When they meet each other for the first time, they like what they see. After the shy, clumsy Victor bungles a wedding rehearsal, he practices his wedding vows in a forest, placing the wedding ring on what looks like a tree branch.

The branch is actually the finger of a deceased bride who is so thrilled by the prospect of marriage that she rises from the grave and spirits Victor to the Land of the Dead. In the surprisingly festive afterlife, Victor learns that his new fiancee's name is Emily (Helena Bonham Carter) and that she was murdered in the woods on the night of her elopement.

Victor, wanting to get back to Victoria, convinces the magical Elder Gutknecht (Michael Gough) to send him and Emily temporarily to the Land of the Living under the pretext of introducing Emily to Victor's parents. Once back home, Victor rushes to see Victoria and confesses his love. Emily feels betrayed and drags Victor back to the Land of the Dead.

Victoria tells her parents that Victor is in trouble, but they believe she has lost her mind and lock her up in her bedroom. She attempts to escape, but to no avail. With Victor gone, Victoria's parents plan to marry her off to a presumably wealthy stranger named Lord Barkis Bittern (Richard E. Grant).

Emily is devastated at first by Victor's deceit, but eventually realizes that Victor and Victoria probably belong together. Victor apologizes to Emily for lying to her.

Victor's recently deceased coachman appears in the afterlife and tells him about Victoria's impending wedding to Lord Barkis. Victor, feeling betrayed, decides to end his own life so he can properly marry Emily. The dead go "upstairs" to the Land of the Living to hold Victor and Emily's wedding in the town church. At first, the living are terrified, but their fear dissipates once they recognize their departed relatives and loved ones.

Victoria hurries to the church and finds Victor about to drink poison. Emily spots Victoria and stops him. Victor and Victoria joyfully reunite, but Lord Barkis interrupts the festivities to remind them that Victoria is now his wife. Lord Barkis attempts to kill Victor with his sword, but Emily takes the blow herself. She then recognizes Lord Barkis as her former fiancé, who murdered her for her dowry and intended the same fate for Victoria. Emily demands he leave. Before he goes, he proposes an insulting mock-toast to Emily. He drinks the poison meant for Victor and dies. The dead gleefully drag him underground while he screams in horror.

Emily sets Victor free of his vow to marry her. Then, she transforms into a swarm of butterflies which fly away.

Blue-tinted, eye-ball-popping, maggot-infested beauty Emily has become known as the Corpse Bride after waiting for her fiancé where the couple planned to rendezvous before getting hitched. When her groom arrives, he kills her, and she rests in the ground to wait for her soul mate, whether he knows he is the Corpse Bride's groom or not. It's a cold dark night, the moon is full, the stars are bright and the forest is a little bit creepy. Wandering through the black mangled trees, Victor just can't memorize his wedding vows. Victor's hesitance towards marriage causes him to jumble the words. Two prominent families have arranged their children to be married in order to overcome financial difficulties. As the objects of betrothal, Victor and Victoria met for the first time the night before their wedding. It only makes sense that Victor, a groom with cold feet, would have trouble remembering tedious wedding vows. Thus Victor ends up in the dark forest ringing his hands and muttering his vows, the vows that the Corpse Bride hears, bringing her out of the grave. Victor suddenly finds himself married to another woman, a voluptuous bombshell bride who also happens to be dead. Whisked away to the Land of the Dead, Victor finds out that living amongst corpses is not as easy as it seems. Heads easily loose their owners and eyes never seem to stay in their sockets, an adjustment that Victor seems reluctant to accept. Once taken into the Land of the Dead, it is nearly impossible to return, causing Victor to choose between risking Victoria's life or giving up his own.

When an arranged marriage between Victor Van Dort and Victoria Everglot reaches the rehearsals, Victor starts to worry. Spending time alone in the forest, Victor decides to practice on his own. Everything seems to go well, until he accidentally puts the ring upon the hand of a corpse. Before he knows it, Victor is in the land of dead and now has a corpse bride. Whilst everyones worries about who Victoria will marry in the land of the living, Victor desperately finds a way to get back.

Set back in the late 1800s in a Victorian village, a man and woman by the names of Victor Van Dort and Victoria Everglot are betrothed because the Everglots need the money or else they'll be living on the streets and the Van Dorts want to be hight in society. But when things go wrong at the wedding rehearsal, Victor goes into the woods to practice his vows. Just as soon as he gets them right, he finds himself married to Emily, the corpse bride. While Victoria waits on the other side, there's a rich newcomer that may take Victor's place. So two brides, one groom, who will Victor pick?