Corpse Bride review

 Number 911 on the top 1000 films of all time is Tim Burton's stop-motion, dark-fantasy 'Corpse Bride.'

Set in Victorian London, Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) is a respectable young man who is betrothed Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson) a sweet-natured, young woman. However, cold feet leads to him messing up the ceremony and running into the nearby forest in shame. While rehearsing his vows, he inadvertently awakens the titular corpse bride Emily (Helena Bonham Carter.) She believes the two are now married and Victor finds himself caught between his alive bride Victoria and his dead bride Emily.

In Corpse Bride, Tim Burton blended together a charming, but strange narrative with some brilliant visuals. The animation was absolutely gorgeous if surreal at times. Stop-motion is always so impressive due to its pain-staking nature. Production for this film lasted for over a year and there were over 100,000 individual frames to be animated. But the finished product was a visual feast for the eyes. I loved the colour scheme. In the Land of the Dead, everything is so bright and colourful, whereas in the real world, everything is daub and downtrodden.

But it's in the Land of the Dead where things get really weird. Especially during the musical numbers, it was like watching an acid-trip. But it's this trademark surrealism that made this film so memorable. It was so creative; I can safely say that I haven't seen a film quite like it. And although the musical numbers are few and far between, they are catchy and thoroughly entertaining. The Remains of the Day was one of my favourites especially with its striking visuals.

Corpse Bride is also littered with acting talent. We've already mentioned Johnny Depp, Emily Watson and Helena Bonham Carter, but Christopher Lee, Richard E.Grant, Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney all lend their voices to this fun little flight of fancy. Johnny Depp sounded almost unrecognisable as he lacks the same accent he adorns for the Pirates of the Caribbean series or Sweeney Todd.  It was also a great script with plenty of jokes as well as some real emotional notes. I particularly loved the final image of the eponymous Corpse Bride dissolving into a group of butterflies. I thought this was a touching and elegant image.

Overall, I really enjoyed Corpse Bride. It was so creative, so colourful with some great musical numbers and voice performances. And the stop-motion animation was absolutely brilliant. It proved that stop-motion animation should be respected as much as any other medium within cinema.