All fangs and no bite, Dark Shadows is another bland Tim Burton rebranding of a classic product, saved from being a total disaster by the talents of his leading man Johnny Depp.
Ever since Burton successfully rebooted the Batman franchise, he has attempted time and again to use that midas touch of his on varied well established works. Success was found with Sleepy Hollow and Sweeney Todd. Dismal failure with Planet of the Apes and Alice in Wonderland.
Dark Shadows firmly belongs with the latter. The film is based on the 1960s TV soap-horror of the same name, which over the years has amassed a cult following counting among its fans Burton and actor Johnny Depp, who with Dark Shadows team up for their (whopping) eighth collaboration.
Depp stars as Barnabas Collins, an 18th century playboy of great wealth who after wronging a jealous witch (Eva Green, the sexiest witch to appear on screen in some time) is cursed to become a vampire and buried alive (or is that un-dead?) for eternity. When he escapes from his coffin prison some 200 years later, this vampire of unquenchable thirst and utmost morals finds himself in the 1970s with his family legacy in ruins and his descendants in desperate times.
Playing the Collins family is an ensemble cast consisting of actors known to the Burton universe (Michelle Pfieffer, Helena Bonham Carter) and others who have history with the horror/fantasy world (Chloe Grace Moretz, Jackie Earl Haley).
Yet thanks to an undercooked screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith (with a story credit to Burton regular John August), this talented cast is wasted portraying banal characters lost amongst the shuffle of one sub-plot on top of another, Burton squeezing multiple story arcs into a two hour run time yet never allowing characters to flourish or relationships to develop. As a result the emotional dramatics fall flat and its stakes never register, making this an empty vessel of a movie.
It’s a shame. The first 20 min of Dark Shadows brought a promise of something moody, creepy and entertaining as the howling sounds of “Nights in White Satin” from The Moody Blues (one of several great 1970s era tracks featured) plays over the opening credits as we follow Australian actress Bella Heathcoate and her disarmingly big blue bug eyes, as she travels upstate to meet the Collins family for a governess position at Collins Manor, an impressive construction put together by production designer Rick Heinrichs and beautifully shot by Bruno Delbonnel.
Another highlight is Johnny Depp’s funny and creepy performance, playing a man from another time with the right amount of inquisitiveness and a vampire with welcomely classic conventions, no doubt inspired by the likes of Bela Lugosi and of course the original Barnabas Collins, Jonathan Frid.
Under Burton’s direction it is effort wasted. Depp is not doubt a man of utmost loyalty (other frequent collaborators include Terry Gilliam and Gore Verbinksi), yet too often of late Burton’s direction has not been able to match Depp’s brilliance, with Dark Shadows another Burton blunder. Into the darkness may it stay. |