Post by telesilla on Oct 23, 2005 10:47:44 GMT
"Oh, those [living] girls are ten a penny. You've got so much more. You've got - you've got - you've got a wonderful personality!"
"Set in a 19th century European village, this stop-motion, animated feature follows the story of Victor (Johnny Depp), a young man who is whisked away to the underworld and wed to a mysterious Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham-Carter), while his real bride, Victoria (Emily Watson), waits bereft in the land of the living. Though life in the land proves to be alot more colourful than his strict Victorian upbringing, Victor learns that there is nothing in the world, or the next, that can keep him from his one true love."
If you had enjoyed Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, you would have expected his inevitable follow-up Corpse Bride to be similarly well done. Unfortunately however, Bride is no match for Nightmare, and pales before it like a poorly stitched together Frankenstein: while the animation is visibly stunning, the backdrops suitably macabre and some of the jokes originally ghoulish, Bride lacks Nightmare's inventive, changing plot and so many of its toe-tapping numbers. Part of the reason for this I think is Burton's decision to go for 'big names' including Richard E Grant - few of whom seem to have been prepared to sing - though the director's wife Helena Bonham-Carter does whisper out a single (grisly-worded) number, bless her socks:
"If I touch a burning candle I can feel no pain,
If you cut me with a knife it's still the same,
And I know her heart is beating,
And I know that I am dead,
Yet the pain here that I feel
Try and tell me it's not real,
Yet it seems that I still have some tears to shed."
If you cut me with a knife it's still the same,
And I know her heart is beating,
And I know that I am dead,
Yet the pain here that I feel
Try and tell me it's not real,
Yet it seems that I still have some tears to shed."
Boo-hoo! But all in all I was pretty disappointed, although it does give an interesting twist to the Persephone/Hades myth (it's actually based on an old Latvian folk tale, but the similarities are clear) and one certainly does feel sorry for the poor dead Bride and her maggot-eaten eye...
Official site: corpsebridemovie.warnerbros.com/ where you can listen to the soundtrack (recommended, and much more fun than actually watching the film!)