Tim Burton first dabbled in the world of feature animation as the producer of 1993’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. That flick didn’t make much of an impact at first, but it developed a nice following over the years and turned into a real holiday classic.

His 2005 animated release Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride fared about the same as Nightmare during its theatrical run. 20 years later, though, Bride doesn’t seem to have achieved the same mainstream love.

When Victor Van Dort (voiced by Johnny Depp) and Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson) come together for an arranged marriage, they happily find that they click. Unhappily, however, Victor becomes so rattled during the wedding rehearsal that he can’t spit out his vows.

When he wanders into the woods to practice, he succeeds and inadvertently commits himself to Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), the Corpse Bride. This complicates his future, as Victor needs to choose between Victoria and Emily.

When I saw Nightmare Before Christmas theatrically, it left me a bit cold. I warmed up to it over the years, however, and came to view it as clever and enjoyable.

Perhaps the same will occur with additional screenings of Corpse, but 20 years down the road I see it as visually impressive but otherwise fairly lackluster. That doesn’t offer much of a change from my view in 2005.

Like Christmas, Corpse uses stop-motion animation. Unlike Christmas - and many other films that use the same techniques – it boasts a fluidity and smoothness that make it remarkable to watch.

Don’t get me wrong - Christmas offered great animation. However, the visuals of Corpse seem truly stunning and feature a tremendous level of detail and precision.

Unfortunately, the movie comes without a story or characters to bring life to the animation. This is truly a case of a film that’s lovely to behold but that doesn’t have a lot happening below the surface. It presents a mildly engaging tale, but even at a mere 77 minutes, it feels a bit padded.

That’s a shame, as the subject matter opens itself up to a lot of ingenuity. Some of this translates on the screen, especially when we enter the Land of the Dead. A few of Danny Elfman’s musical numbers demonstrate creativity and spark, but the rest of the time, the material tends to fall flat.

A lot of that stems from the dull nature of the characters, and the three leads lack even the most rudimentary personalities. Why do we like them?

Because we’re supposed to, I guess. Even though I finished watching the film mere minutes ago, I barely remember anything to distinguish Victor, Emily or Victoria. They’re bland roles who do little to intrigue us.

The secondary parts aren’t that much better. The various dead characters don’t get enough screentime to impress us, though they’re fun in the small doses we find. The living participants are also half-developed at best.

Add to that an uninspired story and you run into problems. I can’t complain about the basic premise, as a tale about a human married to a corpse boasts all sorts of intriguing potential. As depicted here, however, it meanders and doesn’t do much to capitalize on its strengths.

Maybe I just expected too much from Corpse Bride, but I don’t think that’s the case. I wanted some entertainment with interesting characters and a decent plot.

Is that too much to ask these days? I really liked the movie’s visuals, but on their own, they can’t carry an otherwise fairly dull flick.

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this 4K UHD Disc. Though only finished 2K, this UHD offered a strong image.

Sharpness excelled. Virtually no softness impacted this tight and concise presentation.

No issues with jagged edges or shimmering appeared, and I saw no signs of edge haloes. Print flaws failed to manifest at any point.

The colors of Corpse varied depending where the action occurred. The Land of the Living was relentlessly monochromatic, so it featured a light blue tint and that was it.

On the other hand, the Land of the Dead looked much more dynamic. It went with somewhat sickly greens, blues and other tones, but they seemed vivid and snappy within production choices, and HDR added punch to the tones.

Blacks seemed deep and firm, whereas shadows demonstrated fine depth and clarity. I felt highly pleased with the movie’s visuals.

Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the Dolby Atmos soundtrack of Corpse Bride also worked well. Because the movie didn’t feature a lot of slam-bang action, I didn’t expect a lively soundfield. However, the speakers filled out the room well and added a lot to the package.

Danny Elfman’s score and songs benefited from this treatment. They presented solid stereo imaging in the front and also meshed to the rears with good involvement.

Some isolated dialogue came from the various speakers, and effects added a great sense of the surroundings. The elements cropped up in all the appropriate locations and formed a vivid feel throughout the flick. The smattering of more active sequences used the spectrum to great effect and worked very well.

Audio quality was very satisfying. Speech seemed natural and crisp, with no edginess or issues connected to intelligibility.

Music was bold and dynamic. The score and songs presented nice oomph and showed great clarity.

Effects were similarly well-defined. Those elements sounded accurate and vivid at all times. This was a fine soundtrack that added a lot to the film.

How did the 4K UHD compare to the Blu-ray version from 2006? The Atmos soundtrack felt a bit wider than its 5.1 predecessor and quality topped the lossy Dolby Digital of the old disc.

The Blu-ray came out during the format’s infancy in 2006 but still held up pretty well. Nonetheless, the 4K UHD offered obvious improvements in terms of delineation, colors, blacks and general stability. Both sound and picture got a clear upgrade via this 4K UHD.

We get a whole mess of old featurettes as well as some new elements. Rather than look at each of those pre-existing reels individually, I’ll treat them as one long documentary and discuss it as a set.

We get Inside the Two Worlds (4:03), Danny Elfman Interprets the Two Worlds (4:56), The Animators: The Breath of Life (6:38), Tim Burton: Dark Vs. Light (3:39), Voices from the Underworld (5:59), Making Puppets Tick (6:33), and The Voices Behind the Voice (7:36).

Across these, we hear from directors Tim Burton and Mike Johnson, screenwriter/lyricist John August, character designer Carlos Grangel, art director Nelson Lowry, puppet makers Peter Saunders and Ian MacKinnon, producer Allison Abbate, composer Danny Elfman, director of photography/VFX superviso Pete Kozachik, animator Phil Dale, MoCo supervisor Andy Bowman, set construction production manager Jon Minchin, lead model rigger Andy Gent, animation supervisor Anthony Scott, puppet fabrication supervisor Graham G. Maiden, and actors Emily Watson, Johnny Depp, Christopher Lee, Albert Finney, Joanna Lumley, Tracey Ullman, Jane Horrocks, and Helena Bonham Carter.

The programs look into the design of the Land of the Dead and the Land of the Living, the score and songs, the stop-motion animation and its complications related to photography, and Burton’s interest in the story and stop-motion as well as his influence over the production.

We also learn about cast, characters, and performances, designing the characters and constructing the puppets. “Voices” lets us see movie clips accompanied by shots of the actors as they perform the lines.

Because it can make matters disjointed, I can’t claim to care for this multiple-featurette format. Despite that, I really dig the material presented in this collection.

We learn a ton about the production, with a lot of great details about the puppets and the animation. I also very much care for the aspects devoted to the actors, as “Voices” is a clever idea that should appear on more releases for animated flicks. Not too much banal happy talk shows up in these tight and informative featurettes.

Next we get a collection of Pre-Production Galleries. This provides a filmed 13-minute, 28-second collection of elements instead of the usual stills.

That becomes necessary since we find lots of animations tests here and it’s not a simple amalgamation of drawings. Indeed, the vast majority of it depicts test footage.

It also presents some storyboard/film comparisons and other bits. We get a very nice look at the different elements in this fun and educational reel.

Two new featurettes accompany the 4K UHD, and Digging Up the Past spans eight minutes, 26 seconds. It presents a discussion among Abbate, August and Johnson.

Recorded together, they chat about how they view the movie 20 years later as well as some memories of the production. This doesn’t become a particularly deep reel but it comes with a few decent thoughts.

’Til Death Do Us Art goes for six minutes, 18 seconds. This one involves Abbate, August and Johnson again, though taped separately and not as a group.

They tell us about the story’s origins and aspects of its creation. This feels like a general collection of memories without a lot of real insight.

Unfortunately, the 4K UHD drops a music-only track and the film’s trailer.

Maybe I’ll eventually warm up to Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, but 20 years after its release, it still largely leaves me cold. Though the movie boasts fine production values and spots of cleverness, it lacks enough spirit and warmth to make it truly engaging. The 4K UHD offers terrific picture and audio along with an informative set of supplements. Despite the loss of some pre-existing bonus features, the 4K UHD easily turns into the best home video version of the movie.