PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Corpse Bride (Tim Burton's) (2005)

Corpse Bride (Tim Burton's) (2005)

If you create a user account, you can add your own review of this DVD

Released 14-Mar-2006

Cover Art

This review is sponsored by
BUY IT

Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Animation Main Menu Audio & Animation
Menu Audio
Featurette-Inside The Two Worlds
Featurette-Danny Elfman Interprets The Two Worlds
Featurette-The Animators: The Breath Of Life
Featurette-Tim Burton: Dark Vs Light
Featurette-Voices From The Underworld
Featurette-Making Puppets Tick
Featurette-The Voices Behind The Voice
Gallery-The Corpse Bride Pre-Production Galleries
Isolated Musical Score
Theatrical Trailer
Rating Rated PG
Year Of Production 2005
Running Time 73:59
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered Cast & Crew
Start Up Language Select Then Ads Then Menu
Region Coding 2,4,5 Directed By Tim Burton
Mike Johnson
Studio
Distributor

Warner Home Video
Starring Johnny Depp
Helena Bonham Carter
Emily Watson
Tracey Ullman
Paul Whitehouse
Joanna Lumley
Albert Finney
Richard E. Grant
Christopher Lee
Michael Gough
Jane Horrocks
Enn Reitel
Deep Roy
Case ?
RPI $34.95 Music Danny Elfman


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame None English Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (384Kb/s)
German Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (384Kb/s)
Isolated Music Score Dolby Digital 5.1 EX (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio 1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
16x9 Enhanced
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.85:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English
Arabic
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
German
Greek
Icelandic
Norwegian
Portuguese
Swedish
English for the Hearing Impaired
German for the Hearing Impaired
Smoking Yes
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    When the gothic sensibilities of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are allowed to freely collide and coalesce, cinema magic is almost always in the offing: Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, and Edward Scissorhands all play to near perfection. Disappointingly, though, 2005 saw the first Burton-Depp misfire in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (insert clever candy pun to describe its flaws here), although its bland taste was quickly washed away by the gorgeous stop-motion fantasy Tim Burton's Corpse Bride.

    Timid and shy at the best of times, Victor van Dort (Depp) finds himself more than a little apprehensive as the day of his arranged wedding approaches. He can't seem to remember his vows and will meet his bride-to-be, Victoria (Emily Watson), for the first time at the wedding rehearsal. After fumbling the rehearsal completely, the overwhelming pressure sends Victor running to the woods toward even darker complications. Circumstances and ill-timing combine to have Victor accidentally propose to the very dead, but very romantic, Corpse Bride (Helena Bonham Carter) who whisks him away to the colourful Underworld. Victor must find a way to escape the Corpse Bride before Victoria is forced to marry the seedy Lord Barkis Bittern (Richard E. Grant) and before Victor develops feelings of his own for his new sweet, skeletal fiancé.

    Corpse Bride works perfectly on just about every level. The animation is gorgeous and showcases Burton's style to perfection. Every frame is full of detail and eye-candy and several subtle visual quotations of classic horror films add to the fun. Voice-acting is also top-notch: Johnny Depp is unsurprisingly excellent channelling a stronger version of Sleepy Hollow's Ichabod Crane and Emily Watson is perfectly cast. Helena Bonham-Carter's efforts, though, are stand-out: her portrayal of the Corpse Bride brims with sweetness and innocence and just the right levels of humour. Credit is due where an actor can make you forget that you're watching animated dolls. The supporting cast are also excellent, including Burton regulars Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Albert Finney and Joanna Lumley.

    If there are any criticisms to be made, it is that the film's plot is just a little over-simplistic and relies on a contrived deus ex machina or two to see justice served and a happy ending. When also compared to the earlier stop-motion masterpiece The Nightmare Before Christmas (a Tim Burton production directed by Henry Selick), Corpse Bride falls just below standard. Still, Corpse Bride ranks highly on the Burton filmography and as one of the most enjoyable films to appear in 2005. When the dead guy in the trailer with a sword through his stomach claims "This is going to be good!" you can believe him without any doubts. Highly recommended.

Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration.

Transfer Quality

Video

    An excellent video transfer in all but a single aspect. Corpse Bride is presented at a ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. The film's original aspect ratio is 1.85:1. Frame composition doesn't appear to suffer much and very little has been cropped. Still, an unnecessary move in my mind. The 1.78:1 ratio looks to be rapidly becoming the new dimensions for widescreen pan and scan.

    The film was shot with a digital still camera, and as a result sharpness and shadow detail are for the most part excellent. Contrast is also excellent. Unfocused backgrounds show a little grain. These same backgrounds tend toward posterization, pixelization and colour banding. The effect is all but unbearable on my setup (the worst example can be seen in the night sky at 17:38 as Victor stands on the bridge). When viewed on an Apple Powerbook, the effect is less visible but still quite obvious. I would be interested to hear other's opinions on this issue (I'm hoping it's just a setup issue).

    Much has been made of the contrast between the grey world of the living and the vibrant colours of the underworld. Both worlds have been rendered nicely: no oversaturation or colour bleeding here. Aside from the issues mention above, there are no MPEG artefacts. I didn't notice any aliasing at all. Film artefacts are, naturally, completely absent.

    A long list of subtitles are available. English subtitles are in a white font with a black outline. They are easily readable but placed just a little too high for my liking.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Corpse Bride's audio is presented in English Dolby Digital 5.1 (default), German Dolby Digital 5.1 and an isolated score track in Dolby Digital 5.1. Although not stated on the menus, each of the tracks is EX encoded. I listened to the English track in its entirety and sampled the others. The audio transfer is excellent.

    Dialogue is crisp and clear at all times. Christopher Lee's voice booms very nicely indeed. Audio sync is as accurate as stop motion allows. I noticed no hiss or audio dropouts of any kind. Overall, audio is quite dynamic (a DTS track would always be welcome, though).

    The 5.1 audio is very immersive without being showy. Directional effects, like the numerous echoes and sounds of footsteps (particularly those of the Everglot's butler) are rendered effectively and move smoothly between speakers. Birds swoop overhead, moving from front to rear without a problem. The subwoofer participates at the appropriate scary moments and in support of the score providing a very solid, but subtle bottom end. There's nothing fancy here, but Corpse Bride provides an enjoyable surround sound experience.

    As usual, Danny Elfman performs scoring duties for Burton. Elfman has a very distinct sound and repeats his favoured forms of instrumentation (soprano choir, music box sounds, church organ, and so on). Personally I love his scores and Corpse Bride's score is no disappointment. Scary when it needs to be, jazzy when it ought to be and Victor's simple, yet beautiful piano theme in its many variations rounds out an excellent score.

    Several songs are also featured. I don't feel that Elfman's songs here quite match up to his work on The Nightmare Before Christmas. The songs in and of themselves are memorable, but their performances, for the most part, are just a little weak. Far too many of the voice actors speak their musical lines rather than sing and the effect is somewhat disappointing. The opening song, "According to Plan" in particular suffers in this regard. Still, the music is fantastic and the isolated score is much appreciated.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

Main Menu Audio & Animation

Menu Audio

    All featurettes are of the EPK ilk: some are interesting, others are a little dull. All featurettes are 4x3 except the trailer which is 16x9 enhanced.

Featurette

    Inside the Two Worlds (4:03) - Interviewees discuss the design (both set and characters) of the land of the living and the land of the dead and their key differences.

Featurette

    Danny Elfman Interprets the Two Worlds (4:55) - Information on Burton and Elfman's longstanding relationship, Victor's piano theme, and the musical feeling aimed for in both worlds.

Featurette

    The Animators: The Breath of Life (6:38) - Perhaps the most interesting featurette, we are shown behind the scenes and the painstaking work that goes into stop-motion animation. It's a little surprising to see how large the puppets are.

Featurette

    Tim Burton: Dark vs. Light (3:38) - The inevitable "Tim Burton is wonderful and it's been an enormous pleasure to work with him" segment.

Featurette

    Voices of the Underworld (5:58) - Behind the scenes with the voice cast.

Featurette

    Making Puppets Tick (6:32) - Building and designing the puppets. Makes you feel like changing your job for a few minutes.

Featurette

    The Voices Behind the Voice (7:35) - Several scenes play in one window, while another window shows the actors recording their lines. Gives an impression of just how many takes are needed to get everything just right.

Gallery

    (13:27) - Animation tests for each of the characters and scene development accompanied by Elfman's score.

Isolated Musical Score

Theatrical Trailer (1:50)

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    The Region 1 and Region 4 releases are identical apart from PAL/NTSC and secondary language differences.

Summary

    Corpse Bride is vintage Tim Burton gothic. An excellent film on almost all accounts.

    Video is very good but suffers from posterization.

    Audio is excellent.

    Extras are good but not brilliant.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Adam Atkinson (read my bio)
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Review Equipment
DVDSony DVP-S336, using Component output
DisplayLG Flatron Widescreen RT-28FZ85RX. Calibrated with THX Optimizer. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with THX Optimizer.
AmplificationYamaha RX-V357
SpeakersDB Dynamics Belmont Series: Fronts: B50F, Centre: B50C, Rears: B50S, Sub: SW8BR

Other Reviews
The DVD Bits - Melinda D
impulsegamer.com - Brett Bowman