Corpse Bride (2005)

Tim Burton’s musical animation is almost perfect, with Johnny Depp voicing a 19th-century heir who proposes to a half-buried murder victim played by Helena Bonham Carter in this vivid stop-motion film.

The critic calls it Burton's miniature 2005 film, a sweet/sad Gothic fairy-tale more like Edward Scissorhands than Nightmare Before Christmas, finally affecting with a warm underworld contrasting the cold living world. He singles out the alluring, heart-filled Corpse Bride Emily as an especially strong creation.

This is a wonderful fantasy and exquisitely crafted stop-motion animation that puts a hip spin on a Russian folk tale; it is sweeter than The Nightmare Before Christmas with a consistently funny and often lyrical script that is far better.

Corpse Bride brings Burton’s dark imagination to a hugely entertaining macabre love story with a ravishing neo-Dickensian visual style and unprecedented stop-motion facial expressions; it has more dramatic coherence than The Nightmare Before Christmas and allows sympathy for both brides.

The film is a gently charming stop-motion fairy tale with a low-key tone and eye-popping visual details in its meticulously crafted world of whimsy and ghoulishness. It lacks the intensity and manic highs of The Nightmare Before Christmas but delivers a pleasantly plaintive elegy without the usual Burton flop sweat.

The re-release review lauds the stop-motion visuals as unmistakably Burton's and calls it an inventive comedy showing the living as greater freaks than the dead, with sight gags and expressive faces. It highlights the childlike fun and European influences on the Russian folk-tale adaptation.

The film is a sweet and visually lovely tale of love lost rather than a macabre horror story. Burton creates contrasting palettes for the drab living world and the livelier, cheerier land of the dead, enhanced by stop-motion animation and small graceful details.

The film is a stop-motion fantasy about cadavers and ghouls that feels like a compendium of Burton's style, though it appears dashed off compared to his recent work. It mixes scary and funny tones with panache in its depiction of the living and dead worlds.

An endearingly schizoid Frankenstein of a movie that is by turns relentlessly high-spirited and darkly poignant, more disjointed than Burton's earlier stop-motion work but good-natured and benign overall. The visually restrained Victorian milieu and the Corpse Bride character are beguiling, with strong voice work and a story that wraps on a muted, melancholy note.

The review praises the pure Burton feel, terrific characters, and visual sketchbook style but finds the short runtime limits depth and notes Danny Elfman's score falls short. It concludes that viewers will remember the pretty look and kooky king status more than the plot.

The film is beautifully conceived and impeccably realised in its stop-motion animation and gothic visual style, but it remains somewhat cold to the touch and lacks real animation or emotional spark despite its likeable qualities.

Burton's stop-motion film has more warmth and appeal than its title suggests but is finally more grotesque than good-humored, with the story stretched thin from a short folk tale premise. The world wears out its charm before the end, leaving one wishing it were a short rather than a feature despite Elfman's energetic music.

The film flattens Burton’s Victoriana and perversity obsessions into a minor-key fantasia with no emotional heft or meaning, boiling inspirations into postmodern mush. The stop-motion dazzle and Elfman songs are superficial, with shallow mortality puns and retrograde misanthropy replacing any real exploration of life, death, and love.

A necrophiliac entertainment for the whole family, the film ventures into stop-motion animation with a lightly kinked romance involving a melancholic boy, his intended bride, and a bodacious cadaver. The living world is gray and somnolent while the underworld bursts with mischief, skeletons, and color, suggesting Burton has not abandoned his dark kingdom.

The critic declares Corpse Bride even better than The Nightmare Before Christmas, praising its masterful puppetry, inspired voicing and Burton's twisted sense of humour steeped in 19th-century romanticism. It highlights the lively underworld contrasting the cynical living world and Depp's sympathetic performance as Victor facing his dilemma.

The critic finds it a sweet and touching gothic fairytale with the dead more vibrant than the living. Praises the precise stop-motion animation and strong vocal performances that bring depth to the characters.