Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride
Directed by: Tim Burton, Mike Johnson
Written by: John August, Pamela Pettler, Caroline Thompson
Starring (the voices of): Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Tracey Ullman, Albert Finney, Christopher Lee

I’m having a hard time pinpointing why Corpse Bride isn’t a very good film.I heard someone else refer to it as “astoundingly unengaging”, and that’s pretty much it.Characters without character. Songs without heart. A love story with very little love. 3 characters, 2 sets, and just over an hour of a movie I’m going to forget about by tomorrow.

It’s just barely visually stunning. I told you already — there’s 2 sets: the dreary mansion and the underworld, a fascinating place which incidentally we see none of. That seems to be a reoccurring theme in this flick — show something interesting, don’t give it any detail, then take it away. Oh sure there were interesting side characters, but no attention was paid to them. Even the main villain has only 5 minutes of screen time and remains underdeveloped despite being central to the plot. He gets no song or back story, and then he’s gone. On the other hand, far too much attention is given to the bride’s annoying maggot sidekick, a slimy Peter Lorre rip off. Peter Lorre? Is this a Bugs Bunny cartoon? Is it 1955? I find myself wondering- If I don’t care about ANY of the characters, did Burton? Does he feel now that he has to toss out these shallow morbid-chic scraps to us until he can regain the credibility he had pre-Sleepy Hollow? It’s been a long hard road straight down since Mars Attacks. Well, he wrote a cool kids book anyway…

As for the story, it’s as predictable as anything. All characters moving on autopilot towards the obvious ending with no deeper motivations or developments. Stereotypes chase after other tired clichés making bad puns (eyeball falling out gag was done about 10 times) until it’s over and you’re wondering when the real movie is going to start. This could have been a short, probably should have been. It’s just missing something. The 4 musical numbers are just as forgettable.

It pains me to make this comparison, but this movie is very much like a corpse — pretty but lifeless, only a shell of what it could be. Tragic and hollow all over. Beautiful, boring, rushed and disappointing. — Manic Panda

SCORE:

Recommended If You Like: Shark Tale, Ice Age, Lilo and Stitch 2, and other sub-par animated fare.