RED ENVELOPES: The Nightmare Before...No Particular Day

Corpse Bride came out the weekend I got married. At the time, it seemed like it might be an amusing diversion to go see it, like when my friend in high school Shelley Thompson dragged both her family and the groom's to see Father of the Bride. You know: "Hey, those fictional people on the screen are getting married...JUST LIKE US!" As it happens, our wedding party ended up settling for the actual wedding, which is just as well. Our wedding had the benefit of originality.

The film's official title -- Tim Burton's Corpse Bride -- announces the specific appeal of the movie to a brand-hungry audience. It's a return to the rampant imagination of the former animator, best glimpsed in the now-classics Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the year's second major showcase for the lost art of stop-motion animation. (Wallace & Gromit was the first, and with both snagging Oscar nominations for Best Animated Feature, stop-motion actually helped deny any CGI film a nod for the first time.) What's more, Burton has brought along several of his equally demented collaborators, including actor Johnny Depp and composer Danny Elfman. Attach all that to a story about a nervous man who accidentally marries a sweet but quite dead beauty, and it seems like a welcome return to form.

Unfortunately, the whole enterprise feels like a re-tread through familiar territory. A huge dance number involving skeletons looks like an outtake from Nightmare. A deceased pet evokes memories of Burton's charming short Frankenweenie. Even the most charming scene in the film, a reunion between shocked mortals and their dearly departed loved ones, reminded me of the relationship netween the living and the dead in Beetlejuice. Corpse Bride, as it turns out, is Tim Burton's Greatest Hits.

It's really a shame, because the craft that has gone into the movie is astonishing. Digital camera technology permits a fluid and flexible approach to cinematography, allowing sweeping shots never before possible. And fine mechanisms give the characters an array of expressions to equal any live actor. Corpse Bride flows with the grace of the most beautifully shot live-action film, and the craftsmen who made it deserve all the credit they can carry.

But they're working in service of a film that doesn't go anywhere. None of the characters in John August's screenplay actually does anything. Aside from a brief but charming scene by a piano, we never actually see Victor (Depp) and Victoria (voiced by Emily Watson) express the kind of affection for each other that makes their sacrifices hit home. Emily, the Corpse Bride (spoken for by Helena Bonham Carter) takes the blame for dragging Victor into the land of the dead, but it's not something she took steps to accomplish, but merely stumbled upon. Even the villain, vainglorious Lord Barkis (the dulcet tones of Richard E. Grant) merely backs into a situation that allows him to be evil. In fact, he creates his own undoing, rather than meeting his fate and the hands of any of our heroes.

Meanwhile, many precious moments are spent getting to know Victor and Victoria's hideous parents, as well as the many bizarre residents of the underworld. They get all the songs, too, so a significant portion of the film is spent with people we don't especially care about, talking about the characters we do.

A quick word on those songs. Elfman has clearly gotten ambitious, because they wander all over the place, steadfastly refusing to settle on a melody or a chorus. Combined with overly-clever lyrics (the dead sing of becoming "the remains of the day") and cluttered production that makes those same lyrics inaudible, the songs stop the film cold. I'm all for musicals, and I'll bet that Burton and Elfman could come up with a beaut. But this just feels like songs for the sake of having songs.

At 77 minutes, the movie never has the chance to get boring. But it just feels padded, like a 20-minute short that Burton and co-director Mike Johnson crammed with songs and characters to make it a feature. What's sad is that he probably could have used that time to get to know his characters. Instead, we get more dancing skeletons. It's a waste of a lot of talent, but even more, it's a waste of an opportunity. Corpse Bride is a artful movie, but not an especially engrossing one. With this particular toybox to play in, you can't help expect a lot more.

Never say that Tim Burton doesn't have a vision. It just never looked so narrow before.