The Corpse Bride - Don't Waste Your Money

I took my daughter to see Tim Burton’s the Corpse Bride last night. I’m pretty conservative when it comes to the movies I allow my daughter to watch. The golden rule at my house is that if the Christian movie review site I use, christiananswers.net, says it’s o.k. for kids – she can see the movie. If, however, the site says the movie is not appropriate for children, there is no negotiating – the answer is “no”. Typically the site is pretty conservative and there haven’t been too many times when I disagreed with them, and if I did, it was because I thought they were too hard on the movie. Last night, however, I was very disappointed in the reviews that I had read online about this particular movie, because aside from one that seemed a bit over-the-top conservative, most of the reviews raved about the movie.

I don’t expect every kid’s movie to be an “After School Special”, although I wish they were – but I would like to see some sort of a message involved in the story when the movie is targeting kids. For instance, Shrek told us that we shouldn’t judge people because of how they look, and that we shouldn’t try to change ourselves to be like everyone else because we all have our own quality characteristics. Nemo taught us that no “disability” is an excuse to not go for it – whatever “it” happens to be in your life. Toy Story told us that we don’t leave friends behind and that we’re all in this together…

For what it’s worth, this is what I took away from Tim Burton’s “The Corpse Bride”:

1. First and foremost – Tim Burton has a demonic imagination. As an adult – looking at this film, I can’t imagine getting inside the mind that thought some of this stuff up.
2. It’s o.k. to manipulate people. The Corpse Bride manipulated the main character, Victor, after he was practicing his wedding vows in the forest and she held him to what he had said, whether he actually meant to say it to her, or not.
3. It’s o.k. to feel sorry for people who manipulate others – so long as they have a sad life story. The Corpse Bride had her heart broken and was killed by her groom-to-be, so it was o.k. for her to manipulate Victor so that she could be happy.
4. It’s o.k. to kill yourself if you feel that all your dreams have been lost. Victor finally gave in to the Corpse Bride’s manipulation and agreed to kill himself so that he could be officially married to her when he learned that the woman he really loved had married someone else.
5. It’s o.k. to wish death upon others – so long as they’re a bad guy. In the end, the Corpse Bride’s murderous groom-to-be unknowingly drank some poison wine, surrounded by a bunch of people, both living and dead, who knew the wine was poison. They allowed him to drink the wine, knowing he would die, and the purpose of wanting him dead was so that the dead folks could torment him (seems dead folks can’t torment live people – only fellow dead guys).

The final “YAY!” moment of the movie was in the end when the mean guy drinks the wine and dies – only to be rushed off behind a closed door to be tormented by dead, rotting bodies.

There were other things in the movie that were both immoral and disgusting, but in looking at the true “message” of the movie – that’s what I’ve come up with. Pretty nasty stuff.

I shouldn’t have expected much since I never cared for James and the Giant Peach or the Nightmare Before Christmas, but I thought I would pass this info along, in case any of you were considering taking your kids to see this movie. I would have to say, “don’t waste your money”.