One of my work friends has just gone to see Corpse Bride, and she’s kindly written a short review of it for us, so big thanks to Louise Fraser for this.
Have a read of it, see if you agree and let us know your thoughts. Especially let us know if you’ve seen it and what you thought of it as. Over to Louise…
Cards on the table – you could accuse this review of bais as I am a big Tim Burton fan. However, having never gotten over the disappointment of Planet of the Apes, I do now go to his films with a little trepidation. I was not disappointed. The Corpse Bride is Tim Burton at his usual excellent standard.
This animated film is about Victor (voiced by Johnny Depp), whose parents have arranged a marriage to Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson). Going into the woods at night to learn his vows Victor inadvertently weds himself to the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter) – a woman who died whilst waiting for her love to come and marry her years before. With limbs falling off and a maggot acting as the voice of reason inside her head (literally) she does not at first seem like the best marital material. However, as the film goes on, you realise that she is, in fact, a hopeless romantic with a misplaced sense of who you can marry when you are, well, dead!
The film immediately reminds you of The Nightmare Before Christmas and if you enjoyed that you will definitely enjoy this. Gothic is what Tim Burton does best and the animation brilliantly achieves this, with spindly legged characters and a strange grey hue to everything. Jazz singing skeletons dance with headless French waiters, whilst the characters in the living world are fairly grotesque too. The irony the film uses is that the world of the dead is more alive than the world of the living.
The humour is clever and dark, rather than slapstick, and watch out for the jokes in the background. Johnny Depp plays his usual nervy, clumsy character but is well supported by a strong British cast – including Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney and Paul Whitehouse.
This film is a Halloween classic. Go and see it!
