This Week's Hot Pick: 'Corpse Bride'

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Set in some black-and-white Neverland of Victorian England, Tim Burton's delightful animated family film is the story of Victor (voice of Johnny Depp), a lonely young man whose nouveau-riche parents have arranged his marriage with Emily (Emily Watson), the daughter of an impoverished aristocratic family.

When the lad fumbles his wedding rehearsal and wanders into the woods, his practice vows are overheard by the strangely attractive, decaying corpse of a young woman (Helena Bonham Carter), who rises from the ground and accepts his words as an offer of marriage. She promptly whisks him down to the underworld, a more colorful place where he has all sorts of adventures, meets the frisky ghost of his pet dog, and finds himself torn between a growing fondness for his mistaken wife and a desire to return to the mortal world.

The movie is a funhouse gallery of dancing skeletons, flyaway body parts and Charles Addams-style, trick-or-treat atmospherics. And the underworld folk -- including a maggot that talks like Peter Lorre and a singing black widow spider -- are not nearly as scary as the living, who (except for Victor and Emily) look grotesque and are up to no good.

Danny Elfman's songs, several with a Gilbert & Sullivan flourish, advance the story and hit just the right emotional note. Technically, the film is a seamless piece of puppet animation. And it doesn't overstay its welcome. At 76 minutes, it's wisely calculated to give us as much of its ghoulish whimsy as we can take in one sitting.

The DVD extra include featurettes on the vocal talents, the intricacies of putting life into inanimate objects and the design of the worlds of the living and dead. Burton talks about the story's roots in an Eastern European folk tale while Elfman discusses the styles he created for both worlds. Rated PG for some scary images and action, and brief mild language. (P-I staff)

GRADE: A