Dark Shadows Review

Director Tim Burton and star Johnny Depp reunite for their eighth collaboration in this feature film adaptation of Dark Shadows, the 1966-71 cult classic supernatural soap opera they loved as kids.

In this version, scripted by John August and Seth Grahame-Smith, Depp portrays Barnabas Collins, the heir to a prosperous fishing family who leave England to settle in the New World. In 1752, Barnabas is cursed by the witch Angelique (Eva Green) after breaking her heart and falling for his one true love, Josette (Bella Heathcote). Angelique's spell leads to Josette's death and turns Barnabas into a vampire. She chains Barnabas inside a coffin and buries him "alive" for the next two centuries.





After being unintentionally released from his grave, Barnabas finds himself in the strange, perplexing world of 1972. He returns to his family estate, Collinwood, where he passes himself off to his descendants -- matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer), her troubled children Susan and David (Chloe Grace Moretz and Gulliver McGrath), Elizabeth's shady brother Roger Collins (Jonny Lee Miller), as well as the family's live-in psychiatrist Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter) and caretaker Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley) -- as a distant relative from England back to help the struggling dynasty return to prosperity and prominence. His true nature will remain a secret to most of them ... for now.

But the Collins aren't the only ones he finds in the namesake town of Collinsport. Barnabas meets Victoria Winters (Heathcote), David Collins' new governess and the spitting image of his beloved Josette. He also discovers that Angelique is still very much alive and well, having thrived in the ensuing centuries to become a successful businesswoman and the Collins' biggest rival. Her lusty obsession for Barnabas remains, and she's grown powerful enough to destroy him and the newfound family he's vowed to help.

- Warner Bros.

The characters are played by one of Burton's best ensemble casts yet, but only Depp's Barnabas has anything remotely resembling an arc or development. Pfeiffer is commanding as the Collins' matriarch, but we never get to see her do much more than sit at the head of the dining table or at her desk. Moretz's Susan is the character most radically altered from her small screen counterpart as she's about a decade younger and more akin to Winona Ryder's moody teen in Beetlejuice than the young woman from previous incarnations of the show.

There's an element to Susan that's introduced late in the story, that comes out of left field and is completely arbitrary. Why even introduce it if it's not going to truly be explored? McGrath is a very likable child actor whose arc here as David is, like Susan's, underexplored and underwhelming in the end. For a kid whose problems have brought not one, but two different people (Dr. Hoffman and Victoria) to Collinwood to care for him, there's practically no time spent showing them doing anything with or for him. It's all just exposition to nowhere

Haley has a dopey appeal as the family's oft-drunk handyman and Barnabas' mind-controlled servant, while Miller's self-centered Roger is all upper crust smugness. But, outside of Barnabas, the women are the true protagonists of Dark Shadows and besides Pfeiffer the real standouts among them are Carter as the bitter, besotted shrink and Green as the obsessed enchantress whose spurned love for Barnabas and disdain for the Collins knows no bounds. Green and Carter clearly enjoy sinking their teeth into their roles and have fun with them even when the script seems to forget about them. The most inexplicably neglected character is Heathcote's Victoria, who begins the movie as the protagonist and eyes of the audience only to almost literally disappear from the narrative once Barnabas takes center stage. Their romantic subplot is completely shoe-horned in and woefully undeveloped.

 But this movie is, as expected, The Johnny Depp Show where everyone else is just a guest star. Both Depp and Burton show a degree of restraint here (well, for them at least), finding the pathos in Barnabas' plight even as they have fun with the fish out of water and anachronistic elements. Yes, there are times when Depp seems like Captain Jack Vampire, but there's more vigor and palpable interest from him in this character than there's been in any of his performances in the Pirates sequels. Depp keeps you interested in Barnabas even after it's become clear the movie is in a rush to nowhere during its homestretch.

Like the cult classic TV series it's based on, Tim Burton's Dark Shadows is oddly charming despite being a mess that never reaches its full potential. There are strange characters galore, almost none of whom ever develop into anything more than an image of an interesting character. Commercially, one can't help but suspect that Dark Shadows may prove a disappointment despite the usually powerhouse coupling of Depp and Burton. The film's not horrific enough to be scary, funny enough to truly be recommended as a comedy, and about as dark and Gothic as a Hot Topic t-shirt. And yet, like the original TV show, there's just something about Dark Shadows that keeps you watching to see how things play out. It's just all so damn … peculiar.


Source : http://movies.ign.com/articles/122/1223999p1.html