Skip to content
  • Victor Van Dort, left, voiced by Johnny Depp, and the...

    Victor Van Dort, left, voiced by Johnny Depp, and the Corpse Bride, voiced by Helena Bonham Carter,are shown in a scene from Warner Bros. Pictures stop-motion animated fantasy Tim Burtons Corpse Bride.

  • Animator Tim Allen works with stop-motion puppets in the making...

    Animator Tim Allen works with stop-motion puppets in the making of "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride."

of

Expand
Michael Booth of The Denver Post
PUBLISHED: | UPDATED:

In Tim Burton’s crazy-genius head, hell would actually be a haven where all the cool people hung out.

And living the corseted, proper life in Victorian England would be the real hell, a nightmare that didn’t end at Christmas.

The most winning feature among many in “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” is to make the afterlife a juke joint where everybody knows your cadaver’s name. It’s no wonder that morose groom Victor seriously ponders staying underground, even though he’s not exactly dead, rather than return to the chilly, gray London mansion of his horrid parents.

Hades under Burton’s puppeteering influence is a friendly small town where the skeleton on the next bar stool pours you a drink and hands you a mop to clean up afterward. Your long dead dog, missing fur but not his personality, wags his bony tail when you show up. Freed of all earthly restraints, the (dead) people are not only nice, they’re decent and vibrant.

Making hell a heckuva good time is the twist that turns Burton’s latest movie as sentimental as it is macabre, and a gore- fest dripping with true love. “Corpse Bride” will win your heart, if it doesn’t rip it out of your chest first.

Paradoxically bringing life to all this scenery is a bunch of stop-motion puppets. Burton used this same animation technique for “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “James and the Giant Peach,” and after the live-action yuckiness of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” it’s a welcome return to fine form.

Above ground, Victor (voiced by Burton collaborator Johnny Depp) is a sensitive heir to a family fortune, about to be married against his wishes. Here Burton brings another kink to the usual drama: when Victor finally meets his forced bride Victoria (Emily Watson), he falls in love with her equally sensitive soul.

The Dickensian England they inhabit is all soot and suppression. Four horrid parents inherited from some Roald Dahl vision do their best to ruin the young lovers. Victor is so terrified he can’t get his vows right, and goes outdoors to practice – only to propose to a gnarly stick that turns out to be the skeletal hand of recently deceased Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter).

The necrotic newlywed had been murdered for her money just after marrying bounder Barkis Bittern (Richard Grant). When Victor accidentally proposes, she’s delighted to have a new hubby for the underground, and immediately takes Victor there.

That’s when hell really shines. It’s a pastel-and-candy Mexican village, under Burton’s direction. The stiffs bend over backward to welcome Victor. The only flaw is the music. Personally, I didn’t much like the singing numbers, and Burton himself is bored of the subgenre. He seems to forget for half an hour at a time that he might have intended to make a musical. We’ve seen enough dancing skeletons in Disney shorts.

The Corpse Bride may be frigid by definition, but the movie sails on because she’s a charmer. Her skeleton hand has the cutest habit of popping off during the romantic bits. Buoyed by the life he sees among the dead, Victor is tempted to honor his unintended contract with her.

But of course any man named Barkis Bittern will return for the final act, and Victor may have to save Victoria, back home among the barely living.

Burton keeps it all moving, and ends it at just the right time and length. That in itself is a welcome fall respite, after a summer of movies that didn’t know when to return to the grave.

Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.


***1/2 | “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride”

PG for macabre humor and animated gore|1 hour, 16 minutes|MACABRE ANIMATION|Directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson; written by John August, Caroline Thompson and Pamela Pettler; with the voices of Johnny Depp, Emily Watson, Helena Bonham Carter, Tracey Ullman and Richard Grant|Opens today at area theaters.