"As if love has anything to do with marriage."
STARRING
Johnny Depp
Helena Bonham Carter
Directed by Tim Burton, rated PG
How many stop-motion films have you seen lately? Not many. It seems to be an unpopular form of making movies. I can only think of two off the top of my head: James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas. The latter one made nearly triple its budget at the box-office, so it’s no surprise then that Tim Burton and the creative team responsible for that movie are back with what might be another cult classic.
If there’s one thing you can say about Tim Burton movies, it’s that they’re often dark and strange. This one is no exception. The movie follows Victor (Johnny Depp), a commoner about to be wed in an arranged marriage to a young woman named Victoria. He’s awkward and clumsy, and can’t seem to remember his vows. He goes out in the woods to practice, and before you know it, he’s accidentally placed the ring on a twig that just happens to not be a twig at all, but the finger of a dead maiden. There’s nothing like marrying a corpse to ruin one’s day.
The visuals of this film are similar to those used in The Nightmare Before Christmas, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Burton’s creative team has done an incredible job in terms of design. The characters have exaggerated features, the architecture is just like something out of the 19th century, and the whole movie feels like something taken straight from an Edgar Allan Poe short story. The real fun of this movie is in the details. Whether it be a coffin-bed, a skeleton dog, or a casually misplaced body part, the Land of the Dead looks and feels very different from the Land of the Living. Each location has its own distinct atmosphere and particular quirks, and the result is a visual treat.
Clocking in at only an hour and fifteen minutes, you’d think the film would suffer from being too fast-paced. Surprisingly, that’s not the case. The pacing is about as perfect as it can be. Unlike most family movies these days which don’t take five minutes to introduce the characters and develop them before jumping straight to the main plot, this movie gives the audience time to get used to the visual style and get to know the characters before getting to the meat of the story. The film chugs along at a pace that finds just the right balance between exposition and action. There’s a fully developed beginning, middle, and end. And speaking of the end, this is isn’t as predictable as most kid-friendly movies are these days. The main question the movie asks is, “Who will Victor choose, Victoria or his accidental bride?” Fortunately, it keeps the viewer guessing until the very end, unlike most family movies in which the ending is already known fifteen minutes into it.
The pacing of the script isn’t the only thing good about it – this movie also has a lot of jokes that are actually funny. True, some of them don’t work, but a lot of them do. I laughed out loud on more than one occasion. The dark, dry style of the jokes is perfect for the mood of the film, and ensures that adults will be entertained by this movie as well as children.
The only major problem with this movie is the music. Not that the songs aren’t good, or that there’s too many of them – the songs are fun and there’s just the right amount of them. The problem is, a lot of the time it’s hard to understand the lyrics. This is particular true of songs sung by groups of characters; when you have a bunch of exaggerated, cartoony voices all singing at the same time, the result is nearly all gibberish. Luckily, the visual montages during these songs is entertaining enough to make them tolerable.
This has been a good year for Tim Burton. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was a fun movie, and this is no different. It’s worth seeing for the visuals alone. Although it probably won’t gather as much of a cult status as The Nightmare Before Christmas, it’s a solid way to begin the fall movie season. I give it an 8/10.
The Bottom Line: Fans of The Nightmare Before Christmas and Tim Burton will probably find plenty to enjoy here. But you don’t have to have seen that in order to appreciate this movie’s style and sense of humor. In terms of family films, this is one that will probably appeal just as much to adults as to kids.
Should I see it? If you’re looking for a cute, enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half, you could do much worse than this movie. It’s worth seeing for the visuals alone.