ScooterKSU

As a child, one of the many reasons I loved Christmas was the many stop-motion animated specials that were shown at the time. But with the advent of CGI and other special effects of the like, the stop-motion art has nearly died. But luckily the genre has a savior in director Tim Burton who created A Nightmare before Christmas back in 1993. Over a decade later he Burton put out his second full length stop-motion animation feature film The Corpse Bride.

And since this is Tim Burton, the story is macabre and somehow sweet at the same time. The story takes place in Victorian times focusing on the arranged marriage of Victor, Johnny Depp in his sheepish Edward Scissorhands mode, and Victoria, voiced by Emily Watson (Punch-Drunk Love), yet somehow a joke was never made at this similarity. Unlike many arranged marriages, the two are smitten wit each other but this makes Victor a little too nervous as he messes up rehearsal. So he heads off to the woods to practice his vows only to unknowingly put the wedding ring on the finger of the undead who becomes, naturally, his corpse bride, as voiced by Helena Bonham Carter (Planet of the Apes, the Marky Mark version) and hilarity ensues. To all the dues that had to explain the stripper at your bachelor party, try explaining to you fiancée how you ended up married to the undead the night before your wedding.

The puppets themselves were brilliantly crafted and very similar to those seen in Nightmare with a lot of very tall, very skinny or very short and very obese characters. Each and every puppet that shows up on screen is so entertaining and detailed in their own way they each could have warranted their own movie. The motions of the puppets are very slick and are not at all choppy like the old Christmas specials. There are plenty of plot twists to keep you guessing who Victor end up with and even if you are like me and are able to guess the big twist early, it still doesn't take away from the story.

The only problem with the movie is the stop-motion animation does get a little old as the film progresses. Maybe the Christmas specials had the right time frame with a half an hour runtime. But that is totally made up for in the DVD extras as there are seven mini-documentaries that run about five to ten minutes that show the behind the scenes on how the movie got made. Those alone make the DVD alone worth watching.

The Matador follows an assassin, Julian, and a business man, Danny, who have a chance meeting in Mexico City. The movie plays out like your regular odd couple with a few surprises thrown in. But when the fun south of the border ends, they both go their separate ways back to their separate worlds giving Danny what Julian calls the best cocktail party story ever.

Pierce Brosnan (Remington Steele) plays the out of touch assassin perfectly and nails every line especially the inappropriate on he delivers to Danny. There is even some extra entertainment value in seeing James Bond with graying hair, a beer gut and a cheesy mustache. And if Early Hickey has taught up anything is that mustaches are funny. As for Danny, Greg Kinnear (Talk Soup) looks like he is still trying to corner the neurotic middle age man market left by Garry Shandling, but doesn't nearly does as good a job. Rounding out the cast is Hope Davis (nothing I've seen) as Danny's wife who is basically just there. Also look out for Veronica Mars social studies teacher, Mr. Rooks, who was ousted for a little after school activity with a student as Danny's business partner.

But the problem with The Matador is that it lags a bit at times throughout the movie, and a movie about killing people should never get boring. Then there were a couple inexplicable scenes that you just sit there and wonder why are they in the film like when Julian walks through the hotel lobby in a Speedo then jumps into the pool, alcoholic beverage in hand, only to find a shark. Was Julian just tripping? Was I tripping? There were a few scenes like this. Then the apex of the film went back to a scene earlier in the movie that I didn't realize wasn't resolved. They should have just done what the movie should have been in the first place, randomly killing anonymous dudes. Then this film may have been saved.