‘Corpse Bride’ is visually impressive but ultimately inconsequential

It’s strange to bring up, but it must be said that it’s become a tad boring to be simply dazzled by great visuals. It’s always nice to see that animation; computers and technology in general have come so far, but we have come to a certain point in cinema where such spectacular sights have become so commonplace that they should be stepping stones towards greater ideas, rather than the main attraction.

Indeed, even with only three feature-length films under its belt (“The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “James and the Giant Peach” and now “Corpse Bride”), director Tim Burton’s claymation department is probably the best animation studio working, CGI movies included—I particularly love how each and every character they produce seems to have been made for a different film entirely. But beyond that, what’s the point of “Corpse Bride”? Though draped in a morbidly eye-pleasing blue landscape, the film has no goals and wanders around aimlessly with a pack of brilliant visuals and not much else.

In Victorian England, Victor (Johnny Depp)—a pale young amalgam of Jack Skellington and Edward Scissorhands—is the son of a nouveau-riche family, arranged to be married to Victoria (Emily Watson), the pleasant young daughter of a newly poor family of distinguished lineage. After a disastrous marriage rehearsal, Victor bolts to the nearby evil forest. Practicing his vows, he places his wedding ring on what he thinks is a tree branch… but it’s really the petrified finger of the long-dead Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter), who immediately awakens from her slumber, accepts the vows as her own and whisks Victor away to the world of the dead. After some panicking, he discovers that being dead ain’t such a bad thing after all, and that the Bride (real name “Emily”) is actually quite a sweet woman, but he must return to the land of the living to stop Victoria’s next-in-line fiancé, Lord Barkis Bittern (professional psychopath Richard E. Grant), the villainous cad who, of course, murdered the Corpse Bride and has his sights set on Victoria next.

I write these words with a fair amount of uncertainty because some of the specific details are inexplicably shoved into a number of strangely unlistenable, strangely incomprehensible musical numbers. Frequent Burton collaborator Danny Elfman, the former Oingo Boingo frontman, is one of the most brilliant composers out there today—beating out John Williams, for sure—but I’ve never heard a score from the man that sounded so inconsequential; the songs seem to be present only because animated, PG-rated films must feature song-and-dance numbers. Admittedly, there is a certain smirk to be had when an animated, PG-rated film contains a verse about the inevitability of death (not to mention a spot-on parody of Disney’s “Cinderella” performed with black widow spiders), but with only a handful of truly memorable moments, the entire score feels like an afterthought.

Of course, one can tick off any number of great films that bypass a complicated or sensical plot (and other such problems) with a dedicated tone of voice—emotional sense over logical sense, if you will. Unfortunately, the film is a boatload of potential, filled with a lot of great-looking characters and great looking scenery that aren’t given much purpose at all; without any stated direction, one cannot help but look past its better aspects towards its glaring flaws. Burton, an admitted fan of the ’50s B picture, fills the film with plenty of references; a certain chill runs down your spine when the Corpse Bride explodes from her grave like a zombie movie from the pre-”Night of the Living Dead” days. In fact, the entirety of “Corpse Bride” was clearly made for cinephiles—no other way to explain an extended “Gone with the Wind” parody and a maggot given the voice of Peter Lorre—but the film is so surrounded by stupid dead-related puns (“It takes my breath away... that is, if I could still breathe”) and stale buffoonery that the references feel not like strict homage but a desperate attempt to pad out the already brief running time. It’s a loving parody without a target.

A little too sophisticated for children and yet not quite engaging enough for adults, Corpse Bride is made with a certain heedless joy that cannot be ignored, but its stale approach becomes a task to sit through; it’s either too long or too short. Burton has always had trouble distinguishing between great visuals and greater purpose (his “Batman” films and this year’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”), and it shows badly here. No one can blame him for his enthusiasm to return to claymation, but this time around it hasn’t resulted in anything memorable. But hey, it looks great.