Tim Burton has had a busy summer. Riding the success of his recreation of the classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Burton has co-directed his second animated film (the first being The Nightmare Before Christmas), The Corpse Bride. When watching this movie it is hard not to be comparatively nostalgic of The Nightmare Before Christmas. It is far too similar in tone.

Johnny Depp has returned in collaboration with Burton lending his vocal talents, playing the main character Victor Van Dort. Victor has been arranged for marriage by his parents; to someone he doesn’t know, in an attempt to climb the social ladder. Though seemingly a disaster, Victor and his bride-to-be, Victoria (voiced by Emily Watson), hit it off surprisingly well. At the wedding rehearsal, Victor flubs his lines in a most tragic way, and runs away into a mysterious forest very dramatically (does this sound like a certain Pumpkin King into a similar mysterious forest?). He chooses this fateful area to practice his vows, and inadvertently proposes to a buried corpse (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter). She forces him to go with her to the land of the dead, where she plans to wed, and complexity ensues.

The plot gets very convoluted after that with love triangles, evil dowry-usurping villains, and an amalgamation of interesting characters. In fact the interesting characters are what make this movie so charming. Each character has a defining attribute that is exaggerated or contorted to hilarious proportions, whether it being squatty and fat, having hair that is taller than the person, or just being a decapitated head walking on its own neck membranes and being aided by roaches.

Burton also uses colors in a very interesting way, as is expected of any Burton movie. Ironically there is very little color in the living world. Everything is a different shade of grey, save a few key objects. The color has been almost entirely reserved for the world of the dead. This is almost counterintuitive, because Burton portrays this dead world as a lively, jazzy place with more colorful songs, characters, and performances, and the world of the living is a dull, dead place.