Corpse Bride 2005
I wasn’t crazy about The Nightmare Before Christmas or James and the Giant Peach, so I didn’t have high expectation for Corpse Bride either. But it has been out on video for a while and, having caught up on a lot of movies with Netflix lately, it seemed like a good movie to rent.
Between previews and reviews, the whole movie was given away. I knew that everyone had that odd look with the long limbs and grotesque faces. The living people actually look scarier than the dead ones here. And I knew about the basic storyline as well. In fact, everything pretty much played out conventionally, and in that respect it was a little disappointing, but Tim Burton points out in the very good DVD extras that the movie is based on a short story only a few paragraphs long so maybe that isn’t a surprise. But the technical achievement is still to be admired and the story is clever and cute enough to be likable. Danny Elfman’s songs are enjoyable but kind of forgettable, but there are a couple of very pretty piano pieces.
It is still worth watching, and for those who liked Nightmare and Peach, it certainly isn’t to be missed (of course then you’ve seen it already or own it). One of the best parts was seeing the very good series of DVD extras. There is footage of scoring the movie, recording the voices, and seeing how the puppets work. Although it uses stop motion animation like Wallace and Gromit, the technique is quite different and many parts are actually puppets. And instead of clay, the characters are latex over mechanical parts that make the mouths move or smile. I like seeing how voices become characters and the cast is very, very strong. Though I didn’t recognize many voices while watching, including Johnny Depp’s, it turns out that Christopher Lee, Tracey Ullman, Albert Finney, and others appeared. And Danny Elfman actually got to sing one of his songs. If you are sitting on the fence about seeing the movie, see it on DVD and watch the extras. B-.
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital