Unbrided passion

FILM REVIEW: Corpse Bride

* * * 1/2

This gothic animation from the man who brought us The Nightmare before Christmas epitomises probably more than any other Tim Burton's playful exultation in the dark side and easy dismissal of the dour and banal regular world.

It's a seamless display of dinky gothic stop-motion animation from Burton and his technicians, who wrap us quickly up in the pairing of two painfully shy young people for an arranged marriage, Victor and Victoria.

Victor Van Dort's parents have money from fish-canning but no breeding (and are shaped like Jack Sprat and his wife), whereas Victoria Everglots's parents (think a suited Humpty Dumpty and a bitter, peanut-faced Marge Simpson) are all plum but no cash. Quite in spite of the brutally expedient intentions of the Van Dorts and the Everglots, Victor and Victoria hit it off. But Victor, whose pale face is the exact shape of a Hershey's Kiss, muffs the marital vows and flees to the forest, where he gets them word-perfect but ends up hooking up inadvertently with a unfulfilled bride whose, uh, best days are behind her.

The Land of the Dead is far more fun than The Land of the Living. Sure, the colourful corpses and skeletons live in falling-apart houses, but they're always singing, silly and joyfully half-drunk. Up above, the drab-hued living are tense, mean and fearful. We know who Victor should really be betrothed to, but we are genuinely torn for the Corpse Bride, who is full of loving after a life (and death) of heartbreak.

It's a great cast, with Johnny Depp voicing Victor, Emily Watson as Victoria and Helena Bonham Carter as the Corpse Bride, and Paul Whitehouse, Tracey Ullman, Albert Finney and Joanna Lumley, Christopher Lee, Richard E Grant and Jane Horrocks. Though I always feel that stars are just a publicity point in animation unless they have brilliant voices. Some, such as Finney and Lee, have incomparable larynxes, but it's the cleverness of the animation and the wittiness of the script that decides whether film lives or dies for its audience.

Corpse Bride, which is released next Thursday, lives like a dead thing. (Small kids might need some reassurance, and more than a little processed sugar.)