Corpse Bride - Johnny Depp Tim Burton

(aka 'Corpse Bride')

Directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson
USA 2005

Who else but Tim Burton could make Corpse Bride, a necrophiliac's delight that's fun for the whole family? Returning to the richly imaginative realm of stop-motion animation (after previous successes with The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach), Burton, with codirector Mike Johnson, invites us to visit the dour, ashen, and drearily Victorian mansions of the living, where young Victor Van Dort (voiced by Johnny Depp) is bequeathed to wed the lovely Victoria (Emily Watson). But the wedding rehearsal goes sour and, in the kind of Goth-eerie forest that only exists in Burton-land, Victor suddenly finds himself accidentally married to the Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter), a blue-tinted, half-skeletal beauty (how pleasantly full-bosomed she remains!) with a loquacious maggot installed behind one prone-to-popping eyeball. This being a Burton creation, the underworld of the dead is a lively and colorful place indeed, and Danny Elfman's songs and score make it even livelier, presenting Victor with quite a dilemma: Should he return above-ground to Victoria, or remain devoted to his corpse bride? At a brisk 76 minutes, Burton's graveyard whimsy (loosely based on a 19th century Russian folktale) never wears out its welcome, and the voice casting (which includes Tracey Ullman and Albert Finney) is superbly matched the film's gloriously amusing character design, guaranteed to yield a wealth of gruesome toys and action figures for many Halloweens to come.

Posters

Theatrical Release: September 7th, 2005 - Venice Film Festrival

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DVD Review: Warner - Region 1 - NTSC

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Warner Home Video - Region 1 - NTSC
Runtime	1:17:03
Video	1.78:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 7.39 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate:
Audio	English (Dolby Digital 5.1 EX), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), Spanish (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Subtitles	English, Spanish, French, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Warner Home Video Aspect Ratio: Original Aspect Ratio 1.78:1 Edition Details: • Inside the Two Worlds • Danny Elfman Interprets the Two Worlds • The Animators: The Breath of Life • Tim Burton: Dark vs. Light • Voices from the Underworld • Making Puppets Tick • The Voices Behind the Voice • The Corpse-Bride pre-production galleries • Theatrical trailer • Music-only track DVD Release Date: January 31st, 2006 Keep Case Chapters: 24

Comments:

In an animated film produced with such a, fairly unique, style it is very hard to know how the transfer stacks up unless you have seen (and can remember) the film theatrically. My suspicions are that this is an extremely close representation. The image has had no post-digital manipulations that I can determine and it has been left in its original, extremely dark, state with a very soft color palette. It is pinpoint sharp, tight to the edges, anamorphic, progressive and quite a lot of effort has been put into the package. Although this is not my type of film I did get a kick out of watching it and viewing the extensive extras has made me a bit of a convert. Yes, we recommend - a great DVD and an addictive movie.