Tim Burton delivers a grade
A corpse
Image provided by
Warner Bros. Pictures
Victor Van Dort (Johnny
Depp) and the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter) make a great couple
in Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. |
By Chhun Sun
The Collegian
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are
on top of the list when it comes to combos of directors and actors, which
include Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise as well as Quentin Tarantino and
Uma Thurman.
Usually, Burton is the creepy mastermind behind the films, while Depp
is responsible for carrying out the thoughts in an artistic manner.
You’ve seen their work. Mostly recently, it was in “Charlie
and the Chocolate Factory.” But what really put the two on the map
was their work in 1990s “Edward Scissorhands,” a film that
showed the heartthrob Depp in a disturbing role of a boy with scissor
hands who has a gentle heart.
And the combo is still running strong. This time around is the animated
film “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride,” which opens nationwide
today.
The film is set in a Victorian town that is so gloomy that it might turn
away an audience if it wasn’t for the fact that Burton and Depp
are behind this creation.
The premise of the film is that two young people who have never met are
about to be wed, in the name of joining societies.
Victor (voiced by Depp) is the bachelor son of canned- fish tycoons Nell
and William Van Dort (voiced by Tracey Ullman and Paul Whitehouse), who
both have always dreamt of joining high society.
Then there are old-money aristocrats Maudeline and Finnis Everglot (voiced
by Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney) who are full of class but short on
cash. That’s why they want their sweet daughter Victoria (voiced
Emily Watson) to marry Victor.
From the beginning, the film is predictable. Young couple meets. Young
couple falls in love. Young couple falls out of love. And somehow, young
couple falls back in love again. But it also offers a sad tone, which
is expected in films that Burton is associated with (Think: “The
Nightmare Before Christmas, which Burton wrote).
“Corpse Bride” is created in the unusual union of two animated
films made through stop-motion techniques that involves moving inanimate
objects while photographing them one frame at a time. In this way, the
film has an eerie feel, even though it deals mostly with the madness of
young love and the lengths young lovers will go through to achieve what
is rightfully theirs.
Victor is a shy and clumsy teenager who fails miserably in executing his
vows during wedding rehearsal. Then he wanders into an eerily soulless
forest and serendipitously proposes to a dead bride. What ensues is an
underworld of dancing skeletons, bodiless heads, tortured bodies and anything
that is creepy. But the people in this world have more life than those
in the living world, and that’s where the magic of Burton really
shines.
He always finds ways to stretch something dark and make it into something
beautiful, something people of all ages can enjoy.
Then again, it’s a bit of a stretch when Victor almost gives Emily,
the dead bride, a chance, considering she is dead. But it’s all
in the name of hilarity.
“Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride” defies its title. It has
more life than most movies with live actors and actresses.
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