Ashley Carter
Published: October 12, 2005
Tim Burtons’ “Corpse Bride” is dually set in a dreary 19th century European village, and the colorful land of the dead. This claymation film is a story of an unsuspecting groom played by Johnny Depp named Victor, asking a corpse bride, Emily, played by Helena Bohnam Carter to be his wife. This creates enormous problems because this groom is already promised to be married to a living bride, Victoria, played by Emily Watson, in an arranged marriage the very next day.
The movie contains hints of slight irony throughout the beginning, but drops the idea towards the ending. One example that the film uses is a dialogue title that was used in earlier films that did not contain sound, to change one scene but this was only done for one scene.
The setting of the village had a very dull, unexciting feeling to it because there were hardly any colors used, and it was too monotonous. This seemed to be the intentions of Burton, but it still made for a lack of interest when the story was transferred to the village.
The land of the dead, however, was quite the opposite in that it contains vibrant colors, and unusually quirky characters are seen in every direction. This setting was where most of the interesting events took place.
Everyone should know that Burtons’ use of auditory amusement in his films is meant to entertain, but the songs that were chosen in this film held no candle to living up to his past success, “Nightmare Before Christmas!” This film lacked catchy tunes and the songs were extremely hard to understand. This left viewers pondering what was going through his head.
The film finally becomes interesting when complications occur in three completely different marriage situations. Victor can’t decide which woman to wed in life or death. He leaves his living bride back in the village to be whisked away and betrothed to another man in a sudden “fix it all” situation, and apparently the dead can’t marry the living. This makes for a very confusing ending.
I did not enjoy this claymatic film, and am disappointed by Tim Burton; I think I’ll stick to Nightmare Before Christmas!”
Complementary tickets for this review courtesy of Breeze Cinema, 1233 Crane Cove, Gulf Breeze.
