Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

Ladies and Gentlemen, Tim Burton:

"Today I’m introducing my newest stop motion animation masterpiece, Corpse Bride. You may be wondering, Tim, how could it possibly be as good as its predecessor The Nightmare Before Christmas? To which I answer It couldn’t, and its not. Thank you for coming, and have a good night!"

Did that sum it up for you? Because it should. Let me start by saying that I expect a lot from Tim Burton. A lot. He’s a fucking genius, okay? Did you see Big Fish? TNBC? We’ll ignore Batman for now, but what about Edward Scissorhands? Come on! The man has more gothic creativity in his pinky nail than in Rob Zombie and Anne Rice combined. And that’s saying a lot.

Let’s start with the cast, shall we? For the most part, he did decently this time around. For the most part. I think he faltered a little by having an all-star cast because they don’t all have all star voices, but Helena Bonham-Carter did way better than I expected her to as the title character. The English actors piled up like keys in a bowl at a swinger’s party and that was cool. There were not one, but 2 actresses from one of my all time favorite shows Absolutely Fabulous (Patsy and Bubble). However, and this is a big “however”, Johnny Depp? Bad idea. Now I wouldn’t go so far as to say that dear Johnny should be seen and not heard, though he isn’t hard on the eyes is he ladies (and gentlemen of that persuasion)? He is in fact a pretty good actor (see Edward Scissorhands, above). But to voice this character he, for some reason that only god and Johnny know, raised his voice an entire octave. The voice is so overacted and effeminate that its almost difficult to separate his character from just being the voice-of-a-really-girly-Johnny-Depp. Do you follow? Moving on.

The plot? This sucker's got more holes than a colander. Which brings me to the question I was faced with on a smaller scale with The Nightmare Before Christmas: who is this movie for? In TNBC it didn’t matter, because adults and children alike could enjoy it. My 2 year old son was obsessed with it. I was obsessed with it. Everyone wins in that situation. But the problem with Corpse Bride is, its not really for anyone. The morbidity is up a notch and a half from his last movie, it has drunks, and a 19th century theme that would go way over the head of any child. How many kids do you think knows what a chaperon is anymore? But at the same time the plot is so watered down that no adult could really get into it either. The biggest problem with the plot is that its not really funny, or sad, or exciting; its not really anything. What's the point of a movie that doesn’t make you feel anything except a vague sense of still being impressed with stop motion animation? The plot is predictable at best, and the circumstances under which the main character, Victor, comes to be “married” to said bride is, at best, a stretch of ginormous proportions. And to top it all off, the music sucks. Come on, Danny Elfman. I know you can do better. I know every word to every song on TNBC by heart. You could have squatted and dropped this stuff in the ditch out back.

Which brings me to the characters. Granted, I wasn’t able to get too attached to the characters in TNBC either. Alas, that is Burton’s fatal stop motion flaw that he mysteriously does not possess in flesh and blood cinema. The corpse bride, Emily, is likable, which is the saving grace of this movie. Otherwise you wouldn’t give two shits about any of it. And when she’s pissed, get out of the way cause bitch is wicked awesome. Then there’s Victor and Victoria, and no they aren’t the same person, but I wish they were because that may have been more worth watching. They were, however, both bumbling, soft-spoken pussies with giant emotionless eyes that made me want to blink profusely (see picture).

There were some good parts. I don’t know if “good” is the right word. Let’s see, “interesting”? No…I know: “not an inhumane disappointment of epic proportions”. There is a piano duet between the bride and Victor which is lovely in a way that makes you stop and watch. There is a musical number with skeletons that, if you can ignore the music, was really creatively choreographed. It was like the pink elephants montage in Dumbo, only all the elephants are dead and the acid is laced with a little, I don’t know, meth. And the ending, which true to form I will not reveal here, involving the Bride’s ascent, is pretty damn neat.

So. Nutshell time. Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride gets the Joon rating of Huh…Because I expected better from people who have to go through months of painstaking, perfectly planned work every hour of every day. Everything is picked apart so thoroughly. How could you miss all this? You didn’t, I’d wager, and shame on you for that.