2005 Corpse Bride

• Directed by Tim Burton, Mike Johnson
• Written by Tim Burton, Carlos Grangel, John August
• Stars Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watcson
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 17 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGACeWVdFqo

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The stop action puppetry is impressive, and it is clearly a Tim Burton work. The voice cast is a collection of recognizable people, including Christopher Lee in his last horror movie role. Brian was fairly entertained, but Kevin, not so much.

Spoilery Synopsis

We watch as Victor Van Dort draws a picture of a butterfly. He releases it, and we follow along as it flies through the town. I soon learn that this is a musical as Victor’s parents sing about the pending wedding and how it’s a great day for a wedding. Across the street, the bride’s parents sing the exact opposite song. Her family is dead broke, and they need the wedding for the money. 

The parents all get together to discuss the details of the wedding while Victor keeps himself busy by playing the piano, which draws in Victoria, his bride-to-be that he’s never actually met. 

Three hours later, Pastor Galswells runs them through the wedding rehearsal… one more time. There are a lot of words to memorize, and Victor’s not doing well. He can’t even get a candle to light. In the middle of the ceremony Lord Barkus Bittern comes in, and he’s all stuffy and proper. The whole thing goes badly and Glaswell cancels the ceremony until Victor can learn his vows. 

Victor goes for a walk in the woods as he frets over the lines he can’t remember. He recites his vows as he meanders through the dense old, creepy woods. He finally gets it right– except something in the woods hears him and acts on it. Victor has accidentally committed to marrying a dead woman! “I do,” whispers the Corpse Bride. 

She chases him out of the woods and forces him to kiss her. He wakes up in the land of the dead, and there’s a bunch of fun characters there, celebrating the newlyweds. This leads to another music number, as the skeleton band tells us how she fell in love with a bad man who killed her. There’s a whole prophecy thing involved. 

Back at the house, Lord Barkus tells the others that Victor has been seen in the company of another woman. 

In the deadworld, Victor tries to hide from the Bride, and they chase each other past all the sight gags. When she catches him, he apologizes for the mistake. She says her name is Emily. She gives him a wedding present, a box of bones that assembles itself into a skeleton dog, Scraps, Victor’s dog who died many years ago. 

Victor comes to the conclusion that Emily should meet his parents. The only problem is that they’re still alive. They go talk to Elder Gutknecht, the local expert on lore. He’s got all kinds of books, including one that tells how to get back to the land of the living. 

The couple reappears in the woods. She’s very happy to be back in the real world. Victor says he’s going to go home and prepare his parents, but he really plans on simply deserting her there. The worm in Emily’s head tells her that it’s a trick. 

Victor sneaks into Victoria’s room and tells her that he cannot wait to marry her. Then he sees Emily outside the window, and then he explains things to her. It’s… awkward. When Victor denies it, she says the magic word to take him back to the land of the dead. Afterward, they argue about being married. 

The worm and a black widow spider sing to Emily about her best assets. 

Upstairs, Victoria goes to see Pastor Galswells about the afterlife. “Can the living marry the dead? Victor is married to a corpse bride!” He takes her home and tells her mother that Victoria is speaking in tongues. No one believes her. Barkus talks to Victoria’s parents about how much better she would do to marry him. He talks about the tragedy that took his young bride away many years ago. The parents decide that Victoria will marry Barkus. 

Barkus makes it clear that he’s only marrying Victoria for the family money, not realizing they don’t have any. The servant, Mayhew, dies accidentally. 

Victor apologizes to Emily for how he treated her. None of this was according to plan. They play a duet on the piano, and all is fine. Suddenly, the alarm sounds– it’s a new arrival, Mayhew, who feels much better now. He tells Victor about the upcoming wedding.

Elder Gutkrept comes in and explains that “Till death do us part” means they aren’t really married. Unless Victor actually dies. Victor overhears all this, and he agrees to do it. The whole town is invited to the wedding, and spiders sing a song about making Victor a new suit. 

Back in the real world, just as Barkis begins his speech, all the dead characters arise, which is quite a shock to everyone, all over town. Turns out, most of the villagers recognize the dead as their deceased relatives, and everyone is actually happy about it. 

Victoria explains to Barkus that her family is broke, which comes as a shock to him. The Old Pastor tells the dead, “You shall not enter here!” as the dead come to the church for the wedding. 

Victor and Emily are at the church getting married and Victoria walks in to see it. Emily fills his cup of poison, but she can’t go through with it; she doesn’t want him to die. She doesn’t want to steal Victor away from Victoria. It’s all very touching– until Barkus comes in to break things up; he’s already married to Victoria. 

Emily recognizes Barkus as the husband who murdered her. This leads to an epic fight between Barkus and Victor, with the dead mostly just getting in the way. Barkus wins, and then he picks up the wine glass and drinks it, not realizing it’s poison. Barkus is now one of the dead, subject to their rules. The crowd drags him back downstairs. 

The Corpse Bride gives Victor his ring back, setting him free from his promise. She walks off into the moonlight and breaks up into a swarm of butterflies. Victor and Victoria are left behind in the church for a happy ending.  

Brian’s Commentary

This is probably the most Tim Burtony of all the Tim Burton animated films. He didn’t make much that looked like this afterward. It basically takes everything he learned from “A Nightmare Before Christmas” and brings back the best of that. The problem, if there is one, is that there isn’t much new here. 

It’s not subtle– everything in the deadworld is bright and colorful, and the real world is all dark gray and dull. There are a few songs, but none are especially memorable, and there aren’t that many. 

The cast, on the other hand, is pretty amazing. Every character is played by someone you’ll recognize. If you’re a fan of this kind of animation (I am), you’ll probably like this, but it’s middle-of-the-road of the Burton films. 

Christopher Lee appears in several scenes as the terrifying Pastor Galswell. He does get the line “You shall not enter here,” a line from Gandalf the Grey, a role he wanted but was too old to play. His voice here is unmistakable, although he didn’t do any songs. 

Kevin’s Commentary

I can appreciate this for the work it is. For personal entertainment value, I wasn’t into it. A few chuckles here and there. I found myself concentrating on other things, and at about the halfway point I realized about 20 minutes had passed without me noticing.