review: Corpse Bride (2005)

Corpse Bride
Director: Tim Burton, Mike Johnson
Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson

Rating: 7/10

Another gorgeous movie here. Unfortunately, there's really not much to the story. It's a perfectly serviceable story, and there's nothing really wrong with it, it's just nothing special. It's not nearly as inventive or engaging as A Nightmare Before Christmas. Fortunately, you could strip out all the dialog and still have a wonderful movie to watch. I find it astounding that this was all done with stop-motion puppets. The articulation is so detailed, and the motions so fluid (although still with that lovable stop-motion quirkiness), that I thought it was computer-animation meant to look like stop-motion. You really have to watch the bonus features that show the mechanics of it all. The puppets are quite literally like Swiss watches in their precision. And the set designs are beautiful too.

Overall, this is a rare time when I'm going to say the story just doesn't matter. Watch it to be amazed, and hope that this dying art doesn't disappear completely.