my old goth is better than your new goth
I went to see Corpse Bride this evening, after my first post-flu swim.
First, a brief aside. (oh yes, and “spoilers”)
Viewing the trailers attached to anything animated sucks, because they show you all the ass “kids” movies. The worst this time out would have to be Disney’s Chicken Little. Normally this would only be mildly offensive and I’d laugh at the pathetic attempt to replace Pixar, except that the end of the trailer features the lead character, an assumedly child chicken, doing this ass shaking sex dance.
I still feel unclean.
As for Corpse Bride, I found it mildly disappointing. The technique and visuals were all there, but the story and characters were, well, meh. Victor was a bumbling fool with zero ambition who stumbled his way to victory, and the two female leads, Victoria and Emily (the corpse), just moped about for most of the movie, like little brides should.
Even Victor and Victoria’s (Julie Andrews?) inevitable, um, victory was handed to them, as major villain accidently does himself in. It would have been far more satisfying to see Emily exact her own vengeance on her murderer.
Fairly or unfairly, compare this to Jack and Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Jack’s unsatisfied with his lot so decides to take over Christmas. Sally loves Jack but thinks his plan is wrong so sabotages it. Jack overcomes said sabotage and almost ruins Christmas, realizes his error, and then lays the smack down on Oogie Boogie, freeing Santa to fix up the mess he made. Active characters doing things, instead of Corpse Bride’s protagonists and antagonists sitting back and letting things happen to them.
Without any emotional connection to the characters, the musical numbers fall flat, although the score and piano pieces show that Danny Elfman can still do more than rearrange his Batman theme for the latest super-hero extravaganza.
Ultimately, Corpse Bride was forever fated to live in Nightmare’s shadow. The later had the fertile ground of America’s two most popular holidays to play off of. The former is an old european folk tale of arranged marriges that’s impossible to relate to today.
Originally Posted October 10, 2005