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'Corpse Bride': It's a wonderful afterlife

The afterlife is nothing to fear, according to Tim Burton's latest animated fable. In fact, you might consider hastening your voyage to the other side: In "Corpse Bride," the world of the living is a gray and stiff-necked place, full of unwelcome obligations, while the land below is a never-ending party in which Jazz Age skeleton bands cavort under green and purple lights.

Warner Brothers Pictures 'Corpse Bride' 3 out of 5 stars Directors: Mike Johnson, Tim Burton Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Tracey Ullman, Paul Whitehouse, Albert Finney, Christopher Lee, Deep Roy Run time: 74 minutes Release date: Sept. 23, 2005 Rating: PG for some scary images and action, and brief mild language. See showtimes Corpse Bride slide shows •  Stills from the movie •  The making of... On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime [an error occurred while processing this directive]

You might expect our hero, Victor Van Dort, to celebrate his good luck when, after fleeing nervously from an arranged marriage, he unwittingly marries into the infinite family of the dead (it's hard to explain; let's just say that a jilted bride's longing doesn't end at her funeral). Then again, maybe his new wife's cosmetic flaws — open wounds that expose her ribs and molars, a wandering eye and a Peter Lorre-styled maggot who lives in her head — outweigh her charms. Whatever the reason, Victor decides that Hades can wait, and sets out to weasel his way out of the fire and into the frying pan.

The tale itself is simple and pleasantly fablelike, but the screenplay (by three writers whose collective experience ranges from Burton's best work to TV fantasy and the "Charlie's Angels" remakes) is surprisingly, um, lifeless. While they got plenty of laughs at this week's sneak preview, most of the jokes are fairly obvious, only really working when an actor or animator goes the extra mile: Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter (as Victor and his ex-human bride) both save a couple of zingers with light-touch line readings, while a shot involving a literally jaw-dropping surprise might have provoked groans if it didn't work so perfectly as a sight gag.

Danny Elfman was the natural choice to write the film's few songs, but he isn't at his best here. In the Underworld scenes especially, fans who know the composer's work well might yearn for the sass and swing of his tunes for "Forbidden Zone" (which is emphatically not a family film, as this is, but captures a deranged Cab Calloway vibe that would be welcome here).

The script and songs aren't the main attraction, though, in a film whose look trumps all other qualities. In this respect it's a worthy follow-up to Burton's 1993 "The Nightmare Before Christmas" — a stop-motion treat that revels in all sorts of dark visions while remaining somehow unthreatening, if not 100 percent wholesome. In design and movement, its characters are like a collaboration between the Rankin-Bass studio (whose old TV specials about Rudolph and Santa Claus remain well-loved) and illustrator Edward Gorey. Made with silicone skin instead of clay, the movie's puppets have a perfect-but-tangible look that sits somewhere between the digital smoothness of "Toy Story" and the organic bumpiness of "Wallace & Gromit." They're charming caricatures but capable, when necessary, of registering convincing emotion.

(Like a Rankin-Bass production, "Bride" also benefits from being shorter — 74 minutes — than you expect it to be, hustling through the story without unnecessary padding.)

If the film sometimes seems to coast on its good looks, it does offer bits of inspiration here and there. A worm that looks and speaks like Peter Lorre is always good for a wicked chuckle; and relying on a lovable dog for cuteness doesn't seem like such a cheap shot when the puppy's stripped to the bone. Story-wise, the simple plot does allow for one marvelously strange moment near the end when the dead, en masse, come to visit the living. The mixed signals there — spooky tenderness, comic shocks — remind us of Tim Burton's imagination at its best.