TheRetroCritic

Tim Burton takes a stab at a more personal story with this adaptation of Daniel Wallace's novel. The film follows a son trying to make sense of all the tall tales his dying father spoke about since he was a kid in order to maybe find a connection with him before it's too late. The tall tales in question lend themselves to a lot of fantasy and Burton imagery from werewolves to giants and witches. The tone of the film, however, is very different than what you'd expect from that particular director. A lot of it is surprisingly earnest and you even get a good chunk of the film set in the unaltered real world, a rarity for Burton. Billy Crudup plays the disapproving son and Albert Finney the story-telling dad with a pre-Oscar Marion Cotillard popping up as Crudup's wife. The dynamic between these characters is a tense, interesting one as it's Burton trying his hand at straight-up drama (with a touch of humour, of course) and, although fans of his most stylised stuff

Shot at the same time as Charlie And The Chocolate Factory , Corpse Bride was Tim Burton's first animated feature as director despite having tried his hand at stop-motion animation before with early short effort Vincent and, of course, The Nightmare Before Christmas , which he produced but didn't direct. Like the title suggests, this one's both very wedding themed and death themed. The plot sees nervous Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) be forced into an arranged marriage with Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson) except everything goes wrong, or even more wrong, I suppose, when Victor mistakenly proposes to a corpse he mistook for a tree branch. The corpse in question, bony, maggot-infested Emily (Helena Bonham Carter) accepts the offer and soon drags poor Victor down to the land of the dead to meet her pals. To further complicate things, Victor had taken a shine to Victoria and sinister fellow Lord Barkis (Richard E. Grant) is trying to step in as her husband while Victor&#