...the visuals are so good and the voices so colorful, you probably won't mind the film's minor shortcomings.
It's good to see Burton carrying on the rich tradition of musical cartoons with songs and dances at every turn, as well as carrying on the tradition of stop-motion animation, which pretty much died out when CGI took over. Sure, the whole movie could have been created on computers, but it would probably have cost twice as much to do so and not looked any better.
In "Corpse Bride" Tim 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. It's hard to find anything wrong with that.
Video:
The film's theatrical-release dimensions of 1.85:1 are an almost perfect match for today's 16x9 widescreen TVs, and WB's anamorphic transfer reproduces most of the image quite well. Don't be too alarmed by the opening scenes in the land of the living; they are intentionally drained of color, coming up mainly in dull blues and greys. We find much more color in the land of the dead, an amusing contrast between the upstairs and downstairs worlds. There is some very small line waver and a thin veneer of grain, but they are hardly a distraction. Excellent detailing and intense black levels complete the picture.
Audio:
The audio is in no way spectacular. It ably supports the movie and the music but never draws attention to itself. There is not a lot of energy in the frequency extremes, bass or treble, nor is there very much activity in the surrounds, but the midbass-to-midtreble range is well-balanced, clear, and clean, and the dynamic impact makes itself known any number of times.
Extras:
The extras consist primarily of a series of short featurettes that explore various aspects of the filmmaking. The first is "Inside the Two Worlds," four minutes with the filmmakers describing the worlds of the living and the dead in the movie and explaining why the land of the dead needed to be so much more colorful. Next is "Danny Elfman Interprets the Two Worlds," five minutes with the movie's musical composer. Then, there's "The Animators: The Breath of Life," six minutes on the stop-motion animation used in the film. (In a tribute to the most-famous and best-loved stop-motion animator in pictures, Ray Harryhausen, Burton prominently labeled the piano in his film not a Steinway or a Bosendorfer, but a "Harryhausen.") After that are "Tim Burton: Dark vs. Light," three minutes about the director through the eyes of the actors and filmmakers he worked with; "Voices from the Underworld," six more minutes with the actors involved in the production; and "Making Puppets Tick," six minutes that seem a bit redundant after the earlier "Animators" segment, but still fascinating stuff. The featurettes conclude with "The Voices Behind the Voice," seven minutes of scene-by-scene comparisons of the actors performing their voice characterizations next to the finished shots in the film; and "The Corpse Bride Preproduction Galleries," thirteen minutes on developing the design of the assorted puppets involved. I'd like to have seen all these bits and pieces contained in a single documentary or least had a "play all" button for them, but we get what we get.
In addition, there is a music-only track, if you ever want to hear some seventy-eight minutes of background music; twenty-four scene selections but no chapter insert; and a widescreen theatrical trailer. Spoken languages and subtitles come in English, French, and Spanish.
Parting Thoughts:
Burton tells us on one of the featurettes that the original idea for "Corpse Bride" was nothing more than a couple of paragraphs, and he developed the story from there. The movie is brief at little more than an hour and a quarter, but it still feels inflated. Sixty minutes might have been a better length, but, then, moviegoers expect more than that. Nonetheless, "Corpse Bride" is one of the better animations of 2005 and reflects the director's typically peculiar sense of humor. It may not add much to what Burton has already given us, but it's not an unpleasant way to idle away a few whimsical moments.
In "Corpse Bride" Tim 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. It's hard to find anything wrong with that.
Video:
The film's theatrical-release dimensions of 1.85:1 are an almost perfect match for today's 16x9 widescreen TVs, and WB's anamorphic transfer reproduces most of the image quite well. Don't be too alarmed by the opening scenes in the land of the living; they are intentionally drained of color, coming up mainly in dull blues and greys. We find much more color in the land of the dead, an amusing contrast between the upstairs and downstairs worlds. There is some very small line waver and a thin veneer of grain, but they are hardly a distraction. Excellent detailing and intense black levels complete the picture.
Audio:
The audio is in no way spectacular. It ably supports the movie and the music but never draws attention to itself. There is not a lot of energy in the frequency extremes, bass or treble, nor is there very much activity in the surrounds, but the midbass-to-midtreble range is well-balanced, clear, and clean, and the dynamic impact makes itself known any number of times.
Extras:
The extras consist primarily of a series of short featurettes that explore various aspects of the filmmaking. The first is "Inside the Two Worlds," four minutes with the filmmakers describing the worlds of the living and the dead in the movie and explaining why the land of the dead needed to be so much more colorful. Next is "Danny Elfman Interprets the Two Worlds," five minutes with the movie's musical composer. Then, there's "The Animators: The Breath of Life," six minutes on the stop-motion animation used in the film. (In a tribute to the most-famous and best-loved stop-motion animator in pictures, Ray Harryhausen, Burton prominently labeled the piano in his film not a Steinway or a Bosendorfer, but a "Harryhausen.") After that are "Tim Burton: Dark vs. Light," three minutes about the director through the eyes of the actors and filmmakers he worked with; "Voices from the Underworld," six more minutes with the actors involved in the production; and "Making Puppets Tick," six minutes that seem a bit redundant after the earlier "Animators" segment, but still fascinating stuff. The featurettes conclude with "The Voices Behind the Voice," seven minutes of scene-by-scene comparisons of the actors performing their voice characterizations next to the finished shots in the film; and "The Corpse Bride Preproduction Galleries," thirteen minutes on developing the design of the assorted puppets involved. I'd like to have seen all these bits and pieces contained in a single documentary or least had a "play all" button for them, but we get what we get.
In addition, there is a music-only track, if you ever want to hear some seventy-eight minutes of background music; twenty-four scene selections but no chapter insert; and a widescreen theatrical trailer. Spoken languages and subtitles come in English, French, and Spanish.
Parting Thoughts:
Burton tells us on one of the featurettes that the original idea for "Corpse Bride" was nothing more than a couple of paragraphs, and he developed the story from there. The movie is brief at little more than an hour and a quarter, but it still feels inflated. Sixty minutes might have been a better length, but, then, moviegoers expect more than that. Nonetheless, "Corpse Bride" is one of the better animations of 2005 and reflects the director's typically peculiar sense of humor. It may not add much to what Burton has already given us, but it's not an unpleasant way to idle away a few whimsical moments.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]17380[/release]