he major problem afflicting Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride is the existence of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Burton and company had already proven how a film like this could work and if The Nightmare revealed a work of boundless imagination, Corpse Bride comes across as a lumbering beast of technical competence whose accomplishments seem slight by comparison.

Before I explain exactly why Corpse Bride left me disappointed I should illustrate my supreme fondness for The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was the last film I saw in the theater with my parents, it was the first DVD I ever owned, and it’s partly responsible for my current unhealthy obsession with Halloween imagery. The world it created has stuck with me for over a decade now. The labored world of Corpse Bride, however, barely survived the night.

It’s not that the film doesn’t possess the same wonderfully constructed stop-motion animation or those beautifully deranged and creepy landscapes that would feel right at home in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; if anything Corpse Bride represents a dramatic improvement over the techniques demonstrated in Nightmare (despite the absence of Henry Selick, who was indisposed with his work on The Life Aquatic). But with 12 years difference separating each film, one would expect such improvements.


No, what Corpse Bride lacks is the same brilliant storytelling. Both films suffer from brief runtimes, but where Nightmare managed to pack in quite a compelling (or at least entertaining) narrative, Corpse Bride stretches itself thin, as if the images were created before any notion of a screenplay had been developed. Even operating as a sort of simple folktale doesn’t help give it the weight needed to enrapture the audience.

Johnny Depp (in another typically eccentric role) provides the voice of our simpering spineless hero Victor Van Dort who, in the film’s opening sequence, awaits his prearranged marriage to Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson). Since they’ve never even seen each other, neither Victor nor Victoria appears very enthusiastic about this arrangement. Victor can’t seem to remember his marriage vows, and Victoria must deal with her cold, uncaring parents who view the marriage as a means to restore their dwindling assets.

During the rehearsal, Victor mucks up the ceremony, casting doubts for the Everglots about their soon-to-be son-in-law and putting the whole ceremony on indefinite hiatus. This would be a blessing for both Victor and Victoria had they not suddenly (and inexplicably) fallen in love upon their first meeting.

But things steadily go awry, culminating in Victor inadvertently setting Mrs. Everglot’s dress ablaze. This causes such a ruckus that he must flee the Everglot estate and hide out in the surrounding woods. There he collects himself by rehearsing his vows. During this little practice run he places the wedding ring on a twig sticking out of the snow that resembles a finger. Of course, the twig actually happens to be a hand that belongs to Emily, the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter) who emerges from the snow to hold Victor to his mock vows.

Up until this point (and maybe even a little beyond) I appreciated the film. While it was more sparse and less magical than The Nightmare, it still possessed that sense of wonder. Yet, it doesn’t really go anywhere after this. The rest of the film merely revolves around Victor attempting to weasel his way out of the marriage and return to the world of the living while Emily feels sorry for herself. We never grow attached to either character’s struggle and instead spend much of the time admiring the visuals with detachment, never really allowing them to draw us into the narration.


The choice of celebrity voices for all the characters is a miscalculation as well. Animated films work better with relative unknowns. Here, we spend more time trying to identify whether the voice of the village priest is in fact Christopher Lee (it is), instead of seeing these characters as belonging to a world separate from our own (it doesn’t help that Victor looks uncannily like Johnny Depp).

The other glaring flaw lies in the half-assed musical numbers. For a musical, the film contains a scant few actual songs. The less is more doctrine doesn’t apply here as of the few songs present, only one contains a mildly catchy melody and the rest just feel forced. None, however, contain memorable or quotable lyrics. A red flag should have went up when in the trailers for the film they simply rehashed the music from The Nightmare Before Christmas, but who knew that Danny Elfman would phone it in for a film that suited him perfectly (perhaps he was bitter about not getting the title character’s singing voice this time around; then again, the main character in this never actually sings).

Inevitably, I sense that many will still be able to enjoy the film, provided they don’t have the expectations I did. Though, even those who do happen to appreciate it will likely leave it at least slightly disappointed and unfulfilled by its brevity. In the end, however, I wonder if those who enjoy it will scratch their heads at the ending; if they will feel no attachment whatsoever to Victoria and if, like me, they will believe that Victor in all his youthful naiveté managed to pick the wrong bride.