Director: Tim Burton
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Drama
Rating: B+
At some
point in the last decade or so people began to think of Tim Burton as a
director of blockbuster movies, which is about the same time that people really
started to say that Burton’s movies suck.
I suspect that a huge part of this has to do with Johnny Depp; once Depp
did Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse
of the Black Pearl people began to see him as a blockbuster actor and
assumed due to their frequent collaborations that meant that Burton was a blockbuster
director. The problem is that Tim Burton
are not blockbusters and should not be treated as such. The man who made a movie about Ed Wood is not
trying to be a blockbuster director. Let’s
stop trying to treat him as such.
Dark Shadows is a movie upgrade of a
campy 1960s gothic soap opera. That is
the type of movie that this is, and that is how it should be taken, nothing
more, nothing less. The film follows the
life of Barnabas Collins (Depp). Born in
the mid-eighteenth century, Barnabas is the son of a wealthy entrepreneur living
in the fishing port of Collinsport, Maine.
Barnabas is somewhat of a playboy who breaks the heart of servant and
witch Angelique Bouchard (Green). She,
in turn, kills his parents and his lover, Josette du Pres (Heathcote), before
casting a spell that turns him into a vampire.
Turning the town against him, she has him chained in a coffin which is then
buried in the woods. In 1972 later the
coffin is accidentally dug up by a work crew, releasing Barnabas. He finds that his family, or the descendants
of his family, are living in the shadows of the greatness that they once had,
having been cursed by Angelique. After promising
matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Pfeiffer) to keep his true identity secret
from the rest of the family and to not feed on them, Barnabas sets out to
restore his family’s to their former glory.
This film is
campy, but intentionally so. It’s dark,
over the top, and ridiculous, but that’s what makes it fun. The jokes are a bit corny at times, but for
the most part they’re funny. Watching
Depp play an out of time vampire, in the 70s, is pretty much comic genius. One of my favourite scenes was of him trying
to figure out just what a lava lamp is.
At times he’s a bit too over the top, especially in his language (I
never want to hear the term ‘birthing hips’ again), but it works within the
parameters of the film. I also really
enjoyed the more deadpan humour of Willie Loomis (Haley). There’s something about Haley that makes him
both so creepy and so entertaining at the same time. The overall plot of the movie made sense and
was easy to follow, although I would have enjoyed a bit more character
development. You really get to know Barnabas and Angelique, but a lot of the
other characters were a bit sidelined. I
would have liked to have seen more of the Collins children, and I think because
of the lack of development with them some of the plot twists at the end came
out of nowhere. I’m almost interested in
seeing this again, just to see how much foreshadowing there is. I do have to say, my favourite part of this
movie was the music. The score was done
by Danny Elfman which is always a good thing, and the soundtrack is comprised
of music from the 70s. It’s hard to go
wrong there.
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