TIM BURTON'S CORPSE BRIDE (2005). This stop-motion animation from Tim Burton and Mike Johnson is a whimsical and strangely erotic marvel. It opens in a gray and lifeless 19th-century Europe where 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 reciting he wedding 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. (78m)

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