Tim Burton's Corpse Bride (2005)
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Reviews Counted: 187
Fresh: 156 | Rotten: 31
As can be expected from a Tim Burton movie, Corpse Bride is whimsically macabre, visually imaginative, and emotionally bittersweet.
Average Rating: 7.5/10
Critic Reviews: 37
Fresh: 32 | Rotten: 5
As can be expected from a Tim Burton movie, Corpse Bride is whimsically macabre, visually imaginative, and emotionally bittersweet.
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Movie Info
Tim Burton returns to the dark but fanciful animated style of The Nightmare Before Christmas with this stop-motion black comedy. Victor (voice of Johnny Depp) lives in a small European village in the 19th century, where he is pledged to marry Victoria (voice of Emily Watson), a partnership arranged by their parents. The two only meet the day before their scheduled nuptials, and Victor performs disastrously in the wedding rehearsal. Later that evening, while he is walking through the woods and
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Cast
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Johnny Depp
Victor Van Dort -
Helena Bonham Carter
Corpse Bride -
Emily Watson
Victoria Everglot -
Tracey Ullman
Nell Van Dort/Hildegard... -
Albert Finney
Finis Everglot -
Richard E. Grant
Barkis Bittern -
Jane Horrocks
Black Widow Spider, Mrs... -
Christopher Lee
Pastor Galswells -
Joanna Lumley
Maudeline Everglot -
Deep Roy
General Bonesapart -
Danny Elfman
Bonejangles -
Enn Reitel
Maggot, Town Crier -
Lisa Kay
Solemn Village Boy -
Paul Whitehouse
Mayhew, Paul The Head W... -
Stephen Ballantyne
Emil -
Michael Gough
Elder Gutknecht -
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Tim Burton's Corpse Bride Trailer & Photos
All Critics (187) | Top Critics (37) | Fresh (167) | Rotten (31) | DVD (37)
As fun as the film occasionally is, it just plays like a compilation of greatest hits.
Top CriticThey just keep going through the same things over and over again. The songs are forgettable.
Based on a Russian folk tale, Corpse Bride makes for breathtaking viewing.
What makes Corpse Bride sing, ultimately, is the breadth of imagination that it demonstrates; creating a cluttered, textured and mysteriously beautiful world that we're loathe to leave at the end.
Corpse Bride has the look and feel of the best puppet show ever.
The sweetness, the visual flourishes and inspired pieces of casting carry the Corpse Bride, if not all the way down the primrose path, then at least across the threshold.
Visually, Burton is at his most Edward Gorey-esque in the austere, storybook Victorian land of the living, whilst his contrasting comic underworld summons the spirit of Poe, the personality of Harryhausen and the ephemera of his own back catalogue.
The Corpse Bride may be a bit too melancholy to find a real family audience, but for an adult who hasn't quite given up on happily ever afters and strange goings on in the dark woods, it's just the ticket.
Another Burtonesque blur of wise-guy nudging and romantic exhilaration
"Better Off Dead" would have been a better title choice for Tim Burton's self-indulgently macabre attempt at creating an animated underworld of gleeful singing corpses.
There is a BEETLEJUICE-type of manic energy %u2014 a sense of imagination run riot that makes the film always worth watching, even when the story loses traction
A brilliantly animated, deliciously macabre and strangely touching triumph.
Magical, with scares most 10-year-olds can handle.
In his commentary, Tim Burton describes the filmmaking process as "no foreseeable in sight," due to the extraordinary patience called for by stop-motion: "It was like Frankenstein or Pinocchio, where you're breathing life into an inanimate object."
Burton thinks in intuitive images, and there are sights here that I would love to have framed on my wall.
In the hands of another director, this material could have been dead on arrival, but for Mr. Burton it's dead on.
Everything from the design to Elfman's score suffers from a "been there, done that" feeling.
The rubbery, pallid digital figures with gigantic soulful eyes are appealing enough, whether dead or alive, even if the bride's voice of conscience is the worm-in-residence shouting out orders from her rotting ear.
Burton definitely follows his own deliriously surreal path that may be more decipherable to a shrink than a movie critic.
Burton has fashioned nothing particularly new, but he has managed to make a sweet little whimsical fairy tale, with a pretty nifty love story thrown in, too. (HD-DVD Edition)
Danny Elfman's catchy songs are all but overwhelmed by Burton and Johnson's visual embellishments.
If Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was Burton's big picture for 2005, this is his miniature.
Audience Reviews for Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Super Reviewer
On visuals this is amazing, just like 'Nightmare' plus of course its Burton's work which is a winner for me. But this film doesn't quite hit the mark, the songs aren't catchy and the characters don't have the same appeal. I didn't like all the skeletons, they aren't characters, just skeletons, nothing much appealing about them.
The human characters were much better than the dead ones, the old Victorian style of costume that was used really looked good and added that gothic feel. The voice work was great, again using a perfect of cast of kooky character actors/actresses to make the magic.
Its visually where the film is best of course, the colours used are all faded, dark, almost black and white. Wonderful palette which always looks good but its missing the magic and indepth imagination of 'Nightmare'. Close for more genius but not quite the gothic dream I hoped for.
Super Reviewer
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- Victor Van Dort: With this hand...I will take your wine...no...
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- Bonejangles: What a story it is. A tragic tale of romance, passion, and murder most foul.
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- Finis Everglot: [Bonejangles creeps up behind Finnis; his eye falls into Finnis' bowl] There's an eye in me soup.
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- Bonejangles: Die, die, we all pass away. Don't wear a frown 'cause it's really okay. You might try and hide, and you might and pray, but we all end up the remains of the day.
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- Maggot: Excuse me. You don't know me, but I used to live in your dead mother.
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- Corpse Bride: You're married to me! She's the other woman!
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Foreign Titles
- Tim Burton's Corpse Bride - Hochzeit mit einer Leiche (DE)
- Les Noces funèbres (FR)
