Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

As a 46 year old liker of quirky British period comedy, I kind of dug it. The bigger question to me is if any kid who saw this would like it.

I'm guessing almost none. The Land of the Dead has some good scares and gross-out humor, but most of the movie is drearily dull and it is definitely the most boring of Tim Burton's stop-motion cartoons he either directed or produced. Not to mention almost all of the characters are nasty and unpleasant outside of Victor, Victoria, and the Corpse Bride herself. I believe this was a box office failure. Easy to see why. I actually picture this movie as the kind of thing a high quality demanding adult would believe would be appropriate to raise their precocious kids on, but the kid themselves would think of it as a punishment.

Maybe I'm wrong there too about the potential class status of the parents. Maybe the kid is crying out to see a Wallace and Gromit cartoon or The Nightmare Before Christmas and the Mom's like, "You'll watch Corpse Bride out of the bargain DVD bin at Costco and like it!"

Either way, I don't see this as a remotely pleasant experience for a kid. It deals entirely with adults and adult problems (an arranged marriage no less), which is not something any kid can possibly relate to. It's not even a real-world adult problem that will effect them when they get older. It's a bad fit for a kids movie.

There are two things I really liked that I'll give it credit for, even if no sane kid ever would. I thought the British voices coming out of the characters sounded incredibly rich. I don't mean wealthy. I mean the voices were deep and powerful like the best British voices. These are not actors best known for cartoons. But their voices are memorable and unique enough to come out of cartoon characters. Christopher Lee should have been acting in a lot more cartoons than he did.

The second compliment is allowing Victor and Victoria to end up together. A lesser movie would have picked The Bride as Victor's ultimate 'ship. But he clearly did not want that 'ship and was only being nice, so I found it bittersweet the Corpse Bride lets him go at the end instead.

Ultimately, I enjoyed more than I didn't. But I'm an adult with a relatively sophisticated taste when it comes to cartoons and TV shows. I imagine kids doing nothing but fidgeting in the theater, and being bored out of their skulls watching that. ***1/2.