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By
WAYNE KLEIN
As a follow up to Burton's
collaboration on "The Nightmare Before Christmas"
"Corpse Bride" isn't exactly an idyllic honeymoon.
Victor (Johnny Depp)the son of a wealthy store
owner (Albert Finney) faces an arranged marriage
to Victoria (Emily Watson) the daughter of a
respected but broke family. Neither one is looking
forward to the prospect until they get to know
each other and realizes that they both feel the
same about their marriage. Things are complicated
by the arrival of a potential rival suitor Barkis
Bittern (Richard E. Grant) when a After the
disastrous rehearsal Victor heads into the near by
forest to practice his vows. While practicing he
places the ring on what he thinks is a twig but is
actually the bony finger of the Corpse Bride
(Helena Bonham Carter) who was murdered waiting
for fiancé to show up. Giddy that she'll finally
be getting married she drags Victor through the
underworld showing him off to her undead friends.
Clocking in at a breezy 77 minutes the film
features imaginative sets, designs lighting
everything but an imaginative story. While the
initial concept is quite good "Corpse Bride" fails
to live up to what Burton vowed would be a strong
follow up to "Nightmare." The story lacks the
creative spark of "Nightmare" and while mildly
entertaining and diverting probably won't be
viewed as often as Burton's other film. The voice
performances of the actors are all quite good.
"Corpse Bride" brims with life visually with rich
highly detailed images that positively pop off the
screen. Even the somber colors of the land of the
living look gorgeous. The 5.1 mix is fleshed out
with nice ambient effects placing everything from
the echo of foot falls in the church to the
seductive sound of crickets in the forest all
around you.
The disc is loaded with extras. We get a music
only track as the first extra here. There's also a
series of extremely good featurettes on the making
of the movie. "Inside the Two Worlds" the first is
more like the promo stuff you see on HBO. We get
to the meat of the subject with the second
featurette "Danny Elfman Interprets the Two
Worlds" a five minute featurette where Elfman
discusses the music and songs of the film as well
as his inspiration for the musical themes. "Tim
Burton: Dark vs. Light" runs under four minutes
and features a very brief interview with Burton
discussing the subject matter. Much better
are"Voices from the Underworld" and "Voices Behind
the Voice"which allows us to see the recording
sessions for the film and hear briefly from the
actors who play the various roles. The best is
saved for last "Making Puppets Tick" which
highlights some of the new techniques to make this
movie and also takes us briefly into the world of
stop motion animation. We also some pre-production
galleries and the theatrical trailer.
Although it isn't as successful or original as
Burton's first foray into stop motion animation
"The Nightmare Before Christmas"(which by the way
was directed by Henry Selick NOT Burton although
it was based on Burton's story, concepts and
drawings), "Corpse Bride" is an entertaining but
with less meat to the story and material. The
extras provide a nice glimpse behind-the-scenes.
Surprisingly Burton doesn't provide a commentary
track nor does his co-director Mike Johnson. |
