Land of Whimsy

Movies watched in February 2006

Land of Whimsy / Movies / Movies watched in February 2006

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

(*) Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer ***½

UK: Nick Broomfield/Joan Churchill, 2003

IMDB reference

Monday, February 27, 2006

His Big White Self ****

UK: Nick Broomfield, 2006

(No IMDB reference)

Sunday, February 26, 2006

(*) The Lion King ***½

USA: Roger Allers/Rob Minkoff, 1994

IMDB reference

Saturday, February 25, 2006

(*) Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism ***½

USA: Robert Greenwald, 2004

IMDB reference

Friday, February 24, 2006

Corpse Bride **

UK/USA: Mike Johnson/Tim Burton, 2005

Corpse Bride has got to be the biggest let-down I've come across in recent years. That's not to say my hopes were particularly high by the time I finally got round to seeing it - the muddled and annoyingly whimsical trailer had already given me cause for concern, and Lyris' damning report of the theatrical screening he attended simply added further fuel to the fire - but even so, the end result turned out to be significantly worse than I had been expecting.

It's hard to believe that many of the same people responsible for the wonderful The Nightmare Before Christmas were behind this, although the absence of director Henry Selick should have been sufficient cause for concern. This time round, Tim Burton took on the role of director rather than simply producing the project, which should have had warning lights going off like crazy given that his last few films have all been flawed at best. Oh yeah, and it has Johnny Depp, a live action movie star, providing the voice over for an animated character.

That, to me, is the crux of the problem. People like Johnny Depp, Emily Watson and Tim Burton's floozy, Helena Bonham Carter, all of whom speak in this movie, are not qualified for the job. People always, for some reason, think that live action movie stars and voice over artists are the same thing, and that the former can easily do the job of the latter. Not so. Doing voice overs requires a completely different set of skills, because the performer's only tool is their voice, whereas live action actors have access to a much wider range of devices. Johnny Depp may be a great actor, but his voice is hardly his strongest attribute, and therefore, when that's all he has at his disposal, he is lost. (I'll make an exception for Christopher Lee, who has a perfectly distinctive and powerful enough voice.)

Of course, the voice acting is not the only problem, but it's one of the first things that struck me when I watched it. The story, too, is muddled, and the animation is almost as wooden as the vocal performances. And don't get me started on the character designs - they look like they were ripped out of a DreamWorks film, which, as you can probably guess, is hardly the endorsement of the millenium. What happened to the naturalistic and crooked charm of The Nightmare Before Christmas? This might as well be CGI, it looks so bland.

IMDB reference