Overview :Set in a 19th century European village, this stop-motion, animated feature follows the story of Victor, a young man who is whisked away to the underworld and wed to a mysterious Corpse Bride, while his real bride, Victoria, waits bereft in the land of the living. Although life in the Land of the Dead proves to be a lot more colorful than his strict Victorian upbringing, Victor learns that there is nothing in this world, or the next, that can keep him away from his one true love.
Critic Reviews
Grade
The Corpse Bride is Poe-try in motion. Edgar Allan Poe, that is. Bride is stylishly dark and, in its own way, moodily romantic. Burton's second foray into stop-motion animation is a fairy tale for Bauhaus fans (Bauhaus the band, not Bauhaus the architectural movement). The film follows Victor (voiced by Johnny Depp), who, on the eve of his wedding, accidentally marries an undead woman (Helena Bonham Carter). This causes a love triangle worthy of The O.C. (conniving parents included). There's an elegant simplicity to the Gothic tale, and that just leaves more room for Burton's cast of kooky side characters (which come in all shapes, sizes and superb personalities). It's shade-darker humor makes Bride a bit more mature than, say, Nightmare Before Christmas, and not totally for the youngest of kids. But that's just more for us grown-up kids to enjoy. more...
A-
As an achievement in macabre visual wizardry, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride has to be reckoned some sort of marvel. It's Burton's second foray into the nostalgic world of stop-motion animation (he codirected it with Mike Johnson), yet far more than the first, 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride is a ghoulishly witty crackpot puppet show, a sculpted musical dreamscape of kiddie-gothic expressionist design. There are Bob Fosse chorus-line skeletons and mansions of such foreboding shadow and architecture that they make Count Orlock's look like a well-lit condo. And there's the Corpse Bride, a beautiful, blue-skinned, truly dead femme fatale with a shapely set of femurs, a nose that's like Michael Jackson's unbandaged, a decayed hole in the cheek through which you can glimpse her molars, and an eyeball that pops right out. more...
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Critic Reviews