Movie Review: A Look Back at My Fave Tim Burton Movie 'Corpse Bride'

Corpse Bride (2005)

Directed by Mike Johnson, Tim Burton

Written by John August, Caroline Thompson, Pamela Pettler

Starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Albert Finney, Joanna Lumley, Christopher Lee

Release Date September 23rd, 2005

Corpse Bride is, for my my money, Tim Burton's best movie. I know I should say Batman and I do love his Batman, but that should only communicate the esteem in which I hold Corpse Bride. I enjoy this dark yet playful animated feature even more than I enjoyed Michael Keaton as Batman. That speaks volumes of the quality of the work that is Corpse Bride, part of Tim Burton's rather exceptional forays into stop motion animation.

The story of Corpse Bride is a highly unconventional love story. Johnny Depp provides the nervous, shy voice of Victor Van Dort who is set to marry Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson), the daughter of an old money family that has fallen on hard times. Victoria's parents, Finis and Maudeline Everglot (Albert Finney and Joanna Lumley), only reluctantly agreed to the marriage of Victor and Victoria because they are broke and Victor's parents are new immigrants with new money. They are voiced brilliantly by the wonderful Tracy Ullman and Paul Whitehouse.

The plot kicks in when a worried Victor, having failed to memorize his vows, wanders into a nearby forest to practice his lines. He ends up proposing marriage to what he thinks is a fallen tree branch and accidentally places his wedding ring on to the dead finger of Emily (Helena Bonham Carter) who then springs from her grave, in full wedding regalia, to say I do. As a terrified Victor tries to make sense of the situation he is whisked away to the underworld, the world of the dead, where the late Emily has lived since having died on her wedding day years earlier.

Meanwhile, in the world of the living, the lecherous and dangerous Barkis Bittern (Richard E. Grant) has shown up at the home of the Everglot's with the intent of stealing the affections, and the supposed fortune, of Victoria away from the now now absent Victor. Victor must now figure out a way to escape the world of the dead and Emily's desperate affection so that he can return to Victoria and rescue her from Barkis' evil intentions.

All of this is presented in a form of stop motion animation that is perfectly fitting to the goth aesthetic that Tim Burton is so well known for. The world of the dead is realized in a fashion that is so classically Tim Burton it feels like the most true expression of Burton's artistic soul since he helped give life to Jack Skellington with Henry Selick in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Combining this incredible form of animation with nods to classic Warner Brothers, cartoons, Burton creates a nightmare space so wholesome it likely launched millions of childhood imaginations to create goth themed musical tik tok accounts.

That sounds glib, I know, but if you've never visited Goth Musical Tik Tok, you're missing out. The children of Tim Burton and Henry Selick and Neil Gaiman, are creating remarkable work on these Tik Tok accounts. The fully formed goth aesthetic from clothes to make up to lighting and music, is wildly imaginative. It's easy to imagine that those born in the wake of A Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride, as well as Burton, Selick, and Gaiman's other darker work, have launched millions of design careers.

I haven't even mentioned the fact that Corpse Bride is a musical. Yes, Tim Burton and collaborators Danny Elfman and John August crafted amazing music for Corpse Bride. The film is best remembered for the song The Remains of the Day. The song, sung by Danny Elfman himself, in the person of a Jazzy skeleton, is an incredible piece that provides expository background for Carter's Emily while also just being an extraordinary piece of piano and horns Jazz.

The soundtrack of Corpse Bride may actually be more popular than the film itself, if the numerous works of art it has inspired on YouTube are any indication. It is, for my money, Danny Elfman's best piece of soundtrack work both for it's story moving lyrical songs and for the instrumental score which is wonderfully spooky and evocative.

The love story, the music, the aesthetic, the stop motion animation, truly what is there not to love about Corpse Bride? The movie is simply a remarkable work of art. Why Corpse Bride has seemingly fallen into obscurity in the overall Tim Burton filmography baffles me. Burton is an often divisive filmmaker whose most recent choices of films have not been great but that cannot explain how Corpse Bride lingers in the shadows of that filmography despite having a strong cult influence in the goth sub-culture. The film tends to be lumped together with less works such as Edward Scissorhands, Batman Begins, and Beetlejuice as an example of Goth Burton, rather than being considered as a masterpiece all its own.

That's a shame but it's also the reason I wrote this review. I really want people to revisit the genius of Corpse Bride and consider the movie on its own merits. Put aside the Burton-ness of Corpse Bride and see it for the extraordinary work it truly is. Corpse Bride is sweet, romantic, gorgeous, and wildly entertaining. It belongs aside Batman as Burton's best work and it truly belongs at the top of any list of great works of stop motion animation where it has long been overshadowed by Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Corpse Bride is available for free right now on YouTube. Watch it today. If you'd like to read more of my reviews of Tim Burton movies, among nearly 2000 movie reviews I have written in the past 20 years, visit my archive blog at SeanattheMovies.blogspot.com. You can also follow me on Twitter at @PodcastSean and for the archive blog, @SeanattheMovies. You can also hear me talk about movies on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast on your favorite Podcast app.