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BY BRETT MICHEL
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78 MINUTES | AT THE PATRIOT/NICKELODEON 1-6, THE REGAL FALMOUTH 10, + THE REGAL CLARKS POND 8 You might think you’d seen the Land of the Dead after viewing George Romero’s recent work of social criticism, but you’d be dead wrong. That distinction belongs to Tim Burton & Mike Johnson’s whimsical, strangely erotic marvel of stop-motion animation. Corpse Bride opens in the gray and lifeless Land of the Living, where Victorian-era Victor (voiced by Johnny Depp) and Victoria (Emily Watson) are about to be pressed into an arranged marriage. Nervous Vic seems a natural fit for the shy daughter of penniless aristocrats (Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney), but as he passes through a forest trying to learn his marriage vows, he puts his ring on a bony finger in the ground and discovers he’s joined himself to supernatural fit Emily (Helena Bonham Carter) — a necrophiliac’s wet dream — in unholy matrimony. Soon, Vic is spirited away to the vibrant Land of the Dead, and that’s where the film comes alive. The storytelling may suffer intermittent rigor mortis, but this Corpse should enjoy a long afterlife.
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