When I need a sad film I watch this as I find the ending very sweet.
Animation wise this is wonderful. I like the design of Victor looking like Johnny Depp and the bright visuals of Emily the only charecter i had a problem with was victoria as she seemed plain in comparision or maybe i missed the point?
The music was your usual Danny Elfman gothic stuff apart from a a couple of songs which seemed happy clappy.
The story was ok to be honest it was a bit plain as none of the charecters seemed interesting except the background ones.
The other night, I showed ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ to my mum. She loved it. I then showed her ‘Corpse Bride,’ and she absolutely positively adored it. And frankly, I don’t blame her. This is arguably one of the best animated films I’ve seen in a long time.
The story follows Victor Van Dort – a shy and rather clumsy young man who is to wed Victoria Everglot, as arranged by both their parents. At first, Victor is quite nervous about meeting his new bride, but he soon finds out that she’s actually not half bad. However, he completely messes up at the rehearsal and is forced to practice his vows in the wood. Ever the klutz, he ends up accidentally marrying himself to Emily the corpse bride, and is whisked away to the land of the dead.
This film is a work of art. The animation is incredibly smooth and detailed, and one can end up forgetting that it was all done with puppets. From a technical point of view, this is miles ahead of ‘Nightmare.’ I also liked how stylized the visuals were. I could tell each character’s personality simply from their designs, which range from sinister to downright adorable. The contrast between the grey, moody Land of the Living and the cheerful, colourful Land of the Dead was both amusing and painfully ironic. As were the wedding vows that Victor kept reciting – they are about love and fidelity, yet he has to recite them to someone he’s marrying simply because his parents are forcing him to.
Danny Elfman also returns with a haunting musical score that complements the visuals very well. Like with ‘Nightmare,’ the background music helps tell the story, rather than being a distraction.
The characters were all wonderful. I generally felt sorry for Emily, our undead lady friend who died a very tragic death. Her plight is handled in a very bizarre way (through an appealing if rather trippy song), and while I didn’t really approve of it at first, I now understand that it’s the only way it can be explained without being disturbing.
I also liked Victor, even though he does come off as being a little insensitive, especially when he tried the old ‘dump ‘n dash’ on Emily. (Of course, she comes back, quite literally, to haunt him.) Victoria was also endearing as Victor’s true bride, and she makes for a strong heroine who actually tries to help Victor, instead of just sitting around and crying. However, I did not find her as interesting as Emily, since she’s almost ‘too perfect.’
However, it’s a shame that ‘Corpse Bride’ will always be compared to ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas.’ Personally, I prefer the latter, even though it is older. The songs in ‘Corpse Bride’ are, while catchy enough, just aren’t as sing-able or as memorable as the songs in ‘Nightmare.’ I also felt that it lacked the child-like warmth of Tim Burton’s previous effort.
Regardless, ‘Corpse Bride’ still has a lot going for it and its positive points far outweigh the negative. If you loved ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas,’ chances are that you’ll like this one too.
Beautiful, atmospheric, flowing stop-motion animation is what really comes to mind after watching this exquisitely crafted film. It's a lovely work of art. Animation-wise, there is no comparison to Burton's past classic, "The Nightmare Before Christmas"(1993). Corpse Bride is infinitely superior, and makes The Nightmare Before Christmas look very shoddy. It's incredible to see how well stop-motion technology has progressed in just 12 years. Despite this actuality, for many(including myself), Corpse Bride will probably live in that film's shadow for quite some time. I started watching this film really expecting The Nightmare Before Chrismas #2. Not quite the fairest way to ever approach a film. In its own right, Corpse Bride is certainly an entertaining film.
The first time I watched it, my opinion was still pending. It took me a couple more viewings to help me decide that I did indeed like it for its creativeness and unique feel. I loved how they made the living world very dreary, while the dead were very blithesome and spirited. And though the living world was much more artistically gratifying to watch, the dead world was just sheer fun. But, it doesn't go without flaws, of course. It moved much too fast and went on without much development, like characteristics and motivation. Victor wasn't quite the best or most endearing character and his sudden decision to stay married to Emily, I had a lot of trouble with. And personally, in this film, Victor killing himself by poison didn't seem like that much of a sacrifice to me. Death looks like heaven! Maybe you could say he wanted to stay for Victoria, but he isn't that much of a passionate character, anyway. The characters also lacked for me. Emily's plot was somewhat endearing, but I really had a hard time feeling for any of the characters, except for Victoria, until the ending, which was actually very touching and helped me feel a bit closer to all the characters.
Borderlining on brilliance, but just not quite there for me, because of a few of the reasons above. Enjoyable and fun, and absolutely breath-taking animation take this film far with me, but it didn't blow me away. Still, it's definitely worth checking out and I will be watching this one again. It's one of the more refreshing animated films I can remember and I just can not forget that haunting ending.
After viewing the movie a second and third time I HAVE to rewrite this review.
I give this movie 4 stars just for the animation and visual aspect. The character designs and animation are the best you can get.
The story is fine for what it is and it holds up pretty good. It's nothing real deep or anything and the characters were pretty much just stock characters but since when has Mr. Burton been the greatest at telling stories?
He always concentrates more on interesting visuals then on storytelling.
As for the songs, they were well written, catchy, and I enjoyed them.
The Wedding Song was my favorite.
So all in all, a very enjoyable movie and a feast for the eyes.
I give it an A+ visually and a B+ story-wise.
If you are into necrophilia, this movie may disappoint you as the main character Victor and the Corpse have a strictly platonic relationship. The film opens with Victor and Victoria preparing to meet the day before their arranged marriage. While both sets of parents are creepy and self serving, Vic and Vicky are both genuine and likable good people. When the two meet, there is a spark that makes them think the arrangement may not be so bad. Unfortunately, Vic being a bit of a klutz keeps messing up the rehearsal. When he goes outside to practice his vows, he accidentally marries a corpse.
There are a number of good things going for this film. Vic and Vicky do manage to generate a real romantic air without the film being cheesy at all. The audience really pulls for them to be together in the face of their misfortune. The Corpse also is a sympathetic character, not a monster, who the audience wants to find peace and a happily ever after. Stop motion animation can be distracting if done poorly, but the smoothness of the effect in Corpse Bride is incredible, and the medium suits itself perfectly to this film's gothic feel.
While the art designs are intricate and creative, Corpse Bride falls victim to comparison of Burton's other masterpieces, The Nightmare Before Christmas in particular. Compared to Nightmare, Corpse Bride's characters seem almost unimaginative, and the dead seem fairly tame. My favorite designs are of the land of the living. Burton made an interesting choice to make the land of the living very cold and dark almost exclusively using black white and gray colors for everything. In contrast, the land of the dead uses a much more extensive color palette incorporating blues and greens into the skin tones of the characters. Thus, the land of the dead is given a warmer and more lively mood. In theory, this is a clever creative choice, though the colorful cast of dead seem so unnatural that the colors just don't work. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride also contains several musical pieces. While adequate, none of them are as catchy as Nightmare's masterful score. Danny Elfman really dropped the ball here, as a couple more memorable tunes would have really invigorated the film.
While this film may never escape the shadow of Burton's Nightmare, it is a good film in its own right with a surprising amount of heart. It's just that I expected a bit more, and I could't stop thinking that I had already seen a better version of this movie. Regrettably, I can only give this film a C+.
This movie isn't as funny as it ought to be, but comedy really isn't the point of the movie. Corpse Bride is FAR more satisfying than Nightmare Before Christmas, which I found to be rather dry upon viewing it recently. The songs are rather dry and out of place, but the movie's got a brilliant visual style. Kinda reminds me of the old adventure game Grim Fandango. The weak point is the very "I saw that one coming" villain, but the trio of main characters are wonderfully realized. The story is a standard "love mix up" fare, but it works. You can't say that the final scene isn't brilliant and touching.
Ok well... I liked the visuals alot. It had some amusing songs while the opening was... less then what I hoped for. But I could have delt with all of this. While im not sure if im the only one who felt this way but what was up with the ending! I mean he didnt even realy know the one he winded up going with at all... not saying the dead one was a better option but Even though it may seem odd I would have preferd that.... Everything was good except the ending and opening few minuts in my opinion.
Looks like everyone shares the same opinion of The Corpse Bride: it was brilliant, but not quite as brilliant as it ought to have been.
The good points: I loved the color and lighting, the general atmosphere. The character designs were brilliant! It was a treat just to watch some of the characters. And there were lots of cute little in-jokes, like Victor/Victoria and the Harryhausen piano. The return-of-the-dead scenes...well, I just liked them for some reason!
The not-so-good points (I wouldn't go so far as to call them bad!) It's inevitable that the Corpse Bride will be compared to Nightmare Before Christmas. Well, I'm afraid that none of the songs in Corpse Bride are as charming and singable as the Nightmare songs. And Victor and Victoria's devotion to each other doesn't seem to be overpowering enough to make the romance aspect really gripping. I mean, at no point does passion really seem to overcome them...it feels more like friendship than love. Victor seems...well...too gentle (or spineless) for real passion.
But the Corpse Bride is still a brilliant piece of work, and very enjoyable.
I'm going to go against the grain on this one. I actually preferred this movie to 'Nightmare Before Christmas', which I just didn't get - partly because we don't have Halloween in Australia, and anything to do with Christmas gets on my goat.
The first 20 or 30 minutes of 'Corpse Bride' are gorgeous, and look like an Edward Gorey story come to life. Everything is set in wonderfully dreary monotone grey, and the character designs are brilliant.
For those who don't know, Victor, hero of the film, is trapped in an arranged marriage, though when he meets his betrothed they get on fabulously and decide the wedding is a good idea after all. Unfortunately, not long afterwards, Victor accidentally becomes engaged to a dead woman (it would spoil it to reveal how) and ends up in the underworld - which by contrast with the drab, gothic world of the living, is often colourful and boisterous. Victor now has to decide between a living woman who he loves, and a dead one who he eventually ends up fancying a bit, too.
I would have loved the entire thing to have taken place in the 'living' world with its wonderful, monotonous greys and Dickensian characters, and I found the underworld sequences less impressive and frivolous and more reminiscent of 'Nightmare Before Christmas'.
There were some weak points. Things moved a little too quickly, characters were a bit sketchy and motivations weren't as well developed as they should have been, but this was for the most part a finely crafted and unique movie (certainly visually) which nearly scored higher.
Incidentally it's a bit unfair to compare it to Nightmare Before Christmas, which Burton didn't direct. Here he is co-director and co-producer. On 'Nightmare' he was co-producer, though his vision obviously loomed large over proceedings.
I must say Burton's movies IMO have ranged from awful (Mars Attacks) to magnificent (Ed Wood). This is one of his better ones. It would be interesting if he turned to animation more often, as he could be a real auteur, if he isn't already.
This was an excellent film. It had that "old fashioned goth" look and it has it's wonderful bits of humor. The story was good and the characters were quite interesting. The only real flaw of the film is that how Vicent got into Underworld. It was never really explained clearly. I can't compare it to "The Nightmare Before Christmas" because I haven't seen the film in years. But still, this movie was excellent.