The script tries to edge into the sort of spookily intriguing ideas fairy tales love. But Burton is more interested in grotesque gags than in the characters or the story, which is as cold and lifeless as a cadaver on a slab.
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:180
Fresh:150
Rotten:30
Average Rating:7.2/10
Consensus: As can be expected from a Tim Burton movie, Corpse Bride is whimsically macabre, visually imaginative, and emotionally bittersweet.
Theatrical Release:21-10-2005
Synopsis: In the same vein as EDWARD SCISSORHANDS and NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, Tim Burton continues to combine wholesome comedy and creepy horror with this tale of a mild-mannered Victorian gentleman,... In the same vein as EDWARD SCISSORHANDS and NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, Tim Burton continues to combine wholesome comedy and creepy horror with this tale of a mild-mannered Victorian gentleman, Victor (Johnny Depp), who accidentally marries a mysterious corpse bride (Helena Bonham-Carter) instead of his intended, Victoria (Emily Watson). Victor soon discovers that the Land of the Dead holds more fun than frights and begins to fall in love with his innocent bride. Meanwhile, Victoria has been drawn into a scam of a marriage and may not escape with her life. As time runs out for everyone, can there be a resolution in which everyone gets what he or she deserves? Building on their past productive relationship (EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, ED WOOD), Tim Burton and Johnny Depp create a colorful riot of a film that revives the increasingly rare method of stop-motion animation. Over the period of 10 years that Burton worked to complete the film, new techniques were created to speed the process, including a new way to change the character models' facial expressions by using gears in their heads. Of particular note is the lilting score by Danny Elfman, another longtime Burton collaborator. Fun for adults and children, CORPSE BRIDE is another welcome walk through Tim Burton's twisted mind. [More]
Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham-Carter, Emily Watson, Albert Finney
Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham-Carter, Emily Watson, Albert Finney, Richard E. Grant
Director: Tim Burton, Caroline Thompson
Director: Tim Burton
Producer: Laurie Parker, Tim Burton, Allison Abbate
Screenwriter: John August
Director: Caroline Thompson
Screenwriter: Pamela Pettler
Composer: Danny Elfman
Studio: Warner Bros.
Reviews for Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
If Nightmare Before Christmas was a jazzy pop number, Corpse Bride is a waltz--an elegant, deadly funny bit of macabre matrimony.
The movie is a bit betwixt and between -- whimsical but eerie, funny but melancholy. That said, Corpse Bride truly is like nothing else at the movies these days.
The film probably won’t spawn a cottage industry at Hot Topic, but its angst-ridden story of love — romantic and platonic — is likely to resonate stronger with shoppers.
Another visually witty stop-motion animation piece that mingles the gleefully macabre and the sweetly sentimental...a winningly lively treat.
A bouncy, enchanting family film, equally captivating on the levels of pathos, dialogue and visuals.
It's not plotting but wit and affection that carry Corpse Bride through.
Petit Guignol as light and fluffy as a corner full of cobwebs . . . with a light humor and real heart, or rather hearts, some of them actually beating
It doesn't stink, but it's a mere technical advance that pales next to Nightmare. The maggot's a Jiminy Cricket manque. And it's just not very animated.
Corpse Bride turns out to be a ponderous mixture of puppetry and animation that is far too technologically complex and laborious for this hopelessly Luddite reviewer.
Sure to please the legions of kids who have bought every Jack Skellington item at their local Hot Topic.
Blessed with memorably iconic characters and a creative, if fairly predictable plot, Corpse Bride is quick, droll, and destined to be a perennial Halloween favorite.
Reeks of Burton-style, borne of a freakish place in the psyche that feeds on the underbelly of things that go bump in the night.
Thoroughly charming and visually spry, Corpse Bride has the stylish impishness that made The Nightmare Before Christmas such a devilish treat to behold.
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