Most of us were probably squealing with delight when we
heard that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp were channeling the old Dark Shadows soap opera in an attempt to
take the vampire crown back from the tweener Twilight crowd.
What we got probably won’t dethrone Edward Cullen as pop
culture’s current top vampire, but it’s exactly what diehard Burton/Depp fans
will enjoy.
After being cursed, vampirized, and resurrected, Barnabas
Collins (Depp) awakens in 1972 to find his family’s name in danger of stasis. Taken in by the family’s current matriarch
Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer) and assisted by the groundskeeper (Jackie Earle
Haley), Barnabas works to rebuild his family’s fishing industry, which places
him in direct competition with Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) – the witch who
cursed him 200 years ago.
Added to the mix are Elizabeth’s angsty teen daughter
Carolyn (Chloe Moretz), scandal-prone uncle Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) and his
ghost-plagued son David (Gulliver McGrath), Barnabas’s lover reincarnated as
the family nanny (Bella Heathcote), and the alcoholic live-in psychiatrist
Julia Hoffman (Burton mainstay Helena Bonham Carter).
I catalogued meticulously the ensemble cast behind Depp
because this movie has no shortage of plotlines. It seems that Burton and screenwriter Seth
Grahame-Smith (late of Pride and
Prejudice and Zombies fame) are trying to replicate the structure of a soap
opera, in that characters and plots alternate center stage. But it doesn’t quite work on film – as a
result, great actors like Carter are underused, while clear talents like Moretz
are forced to wait their turn, while others still, like Miller, never really see
their moment arrive.
As a consequence of all this waiting, many of the actors
seem irritated. While all this scowling
and frowning and grimacing does set a certain mood within the film, it’s a
distancing mood for the audience. When
all the other characters seem impatient, I get restless too, waiting for the
next scene with the actors who seem to be indulging in the spirit of what the
movie ought to be.
The two talents who do shine, perhaps predictably, are Depp
and Green. Depp manages to distinguish this
British character from Sweeney Todd and Captain Jack Sparrow, immersing himself in the
role just as we’d expect of him; Depp is the master of the reaction shot,
toeing the line between “creature of the night” and “fish out of water.” As for Green, she makes her character’s evil
infectious, giving us the sense that she’s having a tremendous amount of fun
being nasty; in the hands of a less capable actress this would have been a
one-note “pretty face” role, but Green creates with aplomb a memorable villain
and a worthy adversary for Barnabas.
When I said that Sweeney Todd was “the movie Tim Burton’s been trying to make all his life,” I didn’t
realize how sadly prophetic that statement would be. While I contend that Sweeney Todd is Top Ten Tim, his subsequent work has been somewhat
less than. 2009’s Alice in Wonderland was lackluster, and Dark Shadows isn’t quite the revelation I had hoped. Again, it’s exactly what I expected. What it doesn’t do is transcend those
expectations.
Indeed, the film’s basic attitude can be summed up with the
line, “I’m a werewolf. Deal with it.” Certainly we can deal with it, but I
wanted a little more. The film is
exactly a werewolf, but it’s a bit declawed.
It has its strengths, and it’s another Tim Burton movie, but it didn’t
blow me away.
See it, sure, but it’s no Avengers.
Dark Shadows is
rated PG-13 for “comic horror violence, sexual content, some drug use, language
and smoking.” Vampires feast, but for
comic effect; blood is omnipresent. Much of the film revolves around a
seduction plot, again played for comic effect.
Since it’s the Seventies, there’s drinking, smoking, and pot throughout.
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