by LORRAINE CARPENTER

With Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory still in theatres, it’s odd that his latest film, a goth fairy tale romance called Corpse Bride, wasn’t held until late October. Presumably every day is Halloween for Burton, who continues to pay tribute to the soft side of the undead in another slick stop-motion animation feature.

While Corpse Bride is no match for his 1993 creation The Nightmare Before Christmas, the film has its charm, and an impressive cast. Johnny Depp voices yet another effete, bumbling hero, Victor, whose impending arranged marriage to a genteel damsel named Victoria (Emily Watson) has frazzled his nerves. To the would-be couple’s crass parents, the wedding is merely a step up the social ladder—Victor’s relatively sympathetic “nouveau riche” mom and pop (Tracey Ullman, Paul Whitehouse) are looking to ally themselves with Victoria’s nasty noble parents, a lord and lady (Albert Finney, Joanna Lumley) seeking salvation from the poor house. While practising his vows in the woods, Victor inadvertently awakens a recently murdered bride (Helena Bonham Carter), who says, “I do” and drags him down to dead world.

With a cast of this calibre—also including Richard E. Grant, Christopher Lee and Jane Horrocks—you almost wish this was a live-action film. The animation pays off, however, allowing the puppets to emote and engage in amusing visual gags, as well as providing a fresh venue for Burton’s signature gothic blue-vision and fanciful colour schemes.

Unfortunately, none of the dazzling all-star cast can sing, and Danny Elfman’s songs are musical dead weight, apart from a rousing jazzy number performed by skeletons in the saloon of the dead, a sequence that inadvertently brings New Orleans to mind—or maybe I’m just twisted.

What really hurts the film is the utterly formulaic story and caricature characters, and the feeling that Burton could have made this film in his sleep, were it not for the painstaking stop-motion process. There’s no fun in self-plagiarizing—it’s just a shortcut to a paycheque.

Corpse Bride opens Friday, Sept. 23

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