Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...

After everything I saw during my set visit for this film, I’m chomping at the bit to actually see it. Now I hear it’s pretty close to finished, and they’ve screened it a few times now. Here’s the first reaction I’ve heard to the film as a whole:

Hey there Harry, haven’t written in for a long time, but here goes.

I attended a screening of Corpse Bride last night, and I gotta say, it was pretty good. I’m a big Tim Burton fan, from Pee-Wee all the way up until Planet of the Apes, which I found to be one of the worst films I’ve ever seen, Big Fish was underwhelming to say the least and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory looks worse than Apes. So I was a bit apprehensive when I was asked to attend tonight. I loved Burtons’ previous animation efforts Nightmare is one of my favorite animated movies of all time, but the one trailer I had seen for Corpse Bride, didn’t seem to be anything special. But I went anyway, cause well, it was free, and I was hoping Burton had reverted to his state of former glory.

Corpse Bride is certainly an improvement in Tim Burtons lagging career. Perhaps it’s because by doing animation he can let all his quirky ideas go, and not have to pull any punches, but he seems to thrive in this medium in a way he no longer does with live action. Anyhow, the movie starts with a song being sung by the parents of Victor Van Dort and Victoria’s parents. Victoria is betrothed to Victor, and through the song we learn that her once affluent family is now, poor, and have arranged the marriage with the Van Dorts a wealthy family who own a fish mongering business, as a way to bring them back to a state of wealth. From the song, Victor and his parents arrive at Victoria’s house. The parents retreat to the western drawing room and Victor sits down to play piano. Victoria comes downstairs, and the two share a tender moment before being whisked off to the wedding rehearsal. At the wedding rehearsal, Victor nervously screws the ceremony up. Ashamed of himself he retreats to the nearby woods to rehearse his vows. As he does this, a man shows up at Victoria’s house, proclaiming himself Lord Barkis Bittern, arriving early for the wedding.

In the woods whilst practicing his vows, Victor unwittingly places a ring on the hand of the Corpse Bride. She wakes from her slumber and pulls Victor into the land of the dead. The movie picks up for a bit right here. There is a great musical number, along with all of the great characters, there’s a Peter Lorre-esque maggot living in the Corpse Bride’s head, some odd spiders, a talking head carried around by cockroaches (think Starship Troopers’ brain bug), Napoleon Bonaparte, complete with a sword run through him, and Victor’s long dead dog whose name I forget at the moment. Anyhow, the story and movie definitely pick up here, where Victor tries to return to his bride-to-be Victoria, but at the same time finding his marriage to the Corpse Bride to be binding. There are some pretty good lines, and some great sight gags. Some of which will definitely be very creepy to the little kids who will inevitably see the film. The voice work is good, but the standouts are Christopher Lee as the pastor, and Enn Reitel as the Peter Lorre Maggot. The animation is good, definitely more fluid than Nightmare. Overall the movie was good but is hurt by it’s third act which you can see exactly what’s coming from a mile away. We were warned that the animation was going to be off in some places, even black and white, but the only problems were some blue lining around some of the characters and some of the digital backgrounds had yet to be finished.

Corpse Bride definitely signals Burton’s return to what he does best, quirky characters, an odd story and great visuals. Hopefully he and Paul Reubens can get together for that R rated Pee-Wee movie Paul’s been talking about wanting to do.

Gerber

Short, but looking good. I still haven’t seen CHARLIE & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, but I’m in the “it’s been a while” camp as far as Burton’s concerned, so I am rooting for this to be a return to form. We’ll see soon enough...

"Moriarty" out.