Posted: 09/24/2005

Corpse Bride

(2005)

by Hank Yuloff

A wedding is such wonderful thing. A couple comes together and whatever their differences and backgrounds, hopefully love will conquer all. Including the fact that one of them is not breathing.

Such is the premise of Tim Burton’s latest animated adventure, Corpse Bride. Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) leaves his disastrous wedding rehearsal to take a walk in the woods. He was not able to get any of the words right and was sent off to practice. While in the middle of practicing, Victor places his ring on what he thinks is a buried tree branch, only to have it be the bone of a murdered woman (Helena Bonham Carter as the Corpse Bride) who comes back “to life” or rather, brings Victor down to the underworld to live with her, now that they are married.

Though there were many funny lines throughout the film, I was, to be honest, quite bored with the whole thing. It is fun to look at, but now that we have gone from Roger Rabbit, to Nightmare Before Christmas, to Toy Story and The Incredibles, watching fun animation is just not enough any more. There has to be a good story and Corpse Bride just didn’t do it for me. In fact, if this was done in “real life” instead of animation, the story would have been panned.

I am beginning to think I am not such a huge fan of Burton’s. I like his films, but am not loving them. I was creeped out by the Charlie character in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and that brought it WAY down in value. I loved Big Fish, but saw no reason to re-make Planet of the Apes (maybe he should stop doing re-makes). Sleepy Hollow and Mars Attacks! were very amusing and Batman Returns and Edward Scissorhands were terrific. Beetle Juice remains one of my favorites of all time. So when did my honeymoon with Burton’s work end? Probably around 1992 (right after Batman) which is shortly after I was married. Maybe THAT is why Corpse Bride failed to ring a bell.

Hank Yuloff is our senior staffer in L.A.

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