'Corpse': Death is beautiful

By Claudia Puig

From USA TODAY, Monday, September 19, 2005

Life's not just for the living: Victor Van Dort, voiced by Johnny Depp, falls for Emily the corpse bride, voiced by Helena Bonham Carter.

Tim Burton's 'Corpse Bride' features the season's most tragic heroine along with some of the liveliest dead people ever seen on film.

Made in the same stop-motion animation style as 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' (though using digital technology this time), it is a worthy successor to that 1993 classic. And it has a soulful quality that 'Nightmare' didn't have.

The visuals are dazzling and the characters vividly rendered in caricature fashion. Danny Elfman's score may be his best yet, with songs that are witty and melodic.

The animation is astounding, and the story and characters are just as compelling.

The voices ideally suit the roles: Johnny Depp does a wonderful job as the humble Victor Van Dort, as does Emily Watson as his equally shy betrothed, Victoria. Victor's fishmonger tycoon parents, voiced by Tracey Ullman and Paul Whitehouse, are perfect as a crass, nouveau-riche couple eager to marry off their son to Victoria because of her aristocratic but cash-poor, super-snob parents, the Everglots, hilariously voiced by Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney.

Victor and Victoria meet for the first time just before their wedding and hit it off, even with their bashful ways. Their union appears it will be happy and loving, but Victor bungles his vows at the rehearsal and ambles off, dejected, into the nearby woods. While he absent-mindedly recites his vows, he places the wedding ring on what appears to be a tree branch. It's actually the decayed finger of Emily, the corpse bride, voiced by Helena Bonham Carter in an endearingly vivacious performance.

Emily was murdered while on her way to her wedding, and she is beyond thrilled to be asked again to wed. Suddenly, Victor has two fiancées, each a catch in her own way.

Though deceased, Emily is more alive than most of the stuffy townspeople. One of Burton's most original touches is making the land of the living a gloomy, somber place, while the afterlife is filled with merry skeletons arrayed in festive and vibrant hues, enjoying days filled with song, dance and humor. The world populated by the dearly departed borrows from Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi and the colorful images of Mexico's Day of the Dead. But the living are a grim lot.

Emily totters around in her wedding gown and has one eye that repeatedly pops out, revealing a worm with a Peter Lorre voice. The character is intended to provide comic relief, but its silliness is not one of the highlights. Emily, Victor and Victoria are the heart and soul of the movie and form a likable triangle. But Emily is the most passionate and sensitive of the cast, and the film is surprisingly bittersweet because of her.

'Corpse Bride' is an unexpectedly touching celebration of love told in a quirky and inventive style.