Corpse Bride

Tim Burton returns to his roots in this giddily macabre and entertaining film that uses good old-fashioned stop-motion animation (which Burton has improved upon since his first foray in The Nightmare Before Christmas) to create atmospheric scenes populated by wonderfully absurdist Victorian caricatures and oddball creatures from a weird, colorful, and lively underworld. Corpse Bride spins a fairytale fable of a shy, awkward young man (voiced by Johnny Depp) whose arranged marriage to a shy, pretty young girl (Emily Watson) is derailed when he accidentally gets hitched to a curvy, beautifully wide-eyed, lovesick—and decaying—corpse (Helena Bonham Carter). Full of lighthearted dark comedy and harmless, PG-rated putrefaction, this quick, droll film is destined to be a perennial Halloween favorite. The picture's only weak points are a predictable plot and a handful of fun but forgettable musical numbers by Danny Elfman, Burton's most favored composer of histrionic movie scores. Recommended. [Note: Available in either widescreen or full screen versions, DVD extras include an option to watch the movie with music only, a 14-minute preproduction segment, a “The Voices Behind the Voice” featurette with split-screen shots of the voice actors and their characters (8 min.), a “Making Puppets Tick” featurette (7 min.), “The Animators: The Breath of Life” (7 min.), a “Voices from the Underworld” featurette on the voice cast (6 min.), “Danny Elfman Interprets the Two Worlds” on music (5 min.), “Tim Burton: Dark vs. Light” (4 min.), “Inside the Two Worlds of the Corpse Bride” (4 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a fun film.] (R. Blackwelder)