Dark Shadows is based on a soap opera that aired five days a week, with 20 minute episodes, from 1966-1971, for a whopping 1,225 episodes. The Collinswood stuff came in its second year, with episode 210.
This film was doomed from the start. The "real Americans" of pop culture have decided that Tim Burton isn't worth the time anymore. It's like when conservatives bent over backward in January to praise Clint Eastwood but condemn his "things are getting better in America" ad. Tim Burton sucks, but his films from the late 80s, early 90s are masterpieces. This film isn't Edward Scissorhands or Batman, so it sucks automatically. Bullshit, I say.
This isn't helped by the fact that "Dark Shadows" isn't something known to everyone, and wouldn't be most people's first choice for a summer movie adaptation. People already hate Burton, and this inspires ambivalence. Also, nothing could possibly be better than The Avengers. People are so determined to make that the greatest film ever they're going to willfully ignore the virtues of any and every single film that will be released for a while. I worry for The Dark Knight Rises. They were saying it was terrible based on people's cell phone videos. That doesn't look nearly as good as the completed second film!
That's my tirade. I went to see Dark Shadows, and I enjoyed it. Johnny Depp gives another unique performance for Tim Burton. If you notice, in their nine, I think, collaborations, he has never played the same character. Pale-skinned, yes, but never the same character. His Barnabas Collins is boyish, charming and smooth, like an Anime character. I liked him. Sometimes he wears the cloak, but other times he's in business playboy casual. He has an intensity because he is, one, lovelorn, and also a monster who feeds on the living. Depp seems to be enjoying himself, but doesn't too often let it show in the character. It's not exactly 100 percent like Jonathan Frid, if you care about that, but it is very focused, much more so than, say, his last Pirates movie.
This is equally a triumph for Tim Burton. For once, he doesn't seem to be merely employed or being strangled by producers demanding a "Tim Burton" product. There's a sincerity and joy in his direction. There are themes familiar to his early works, an ornate house like Beetlejuice, domestic stuff like Edward Scissorhands, but they're never callbacks. It's a sign of comfort and confidence. So much so, he goes out of his comfort zone and does some new and surprising things, like sex jokes. Nothing raunchy, but there is sex in this. Unsubtle. And not just innuendo.
It's good directing, too. Here, Burton really takes his time. This doesn't feel rushed or choppy like so many films recently. (That style seems to be waning in general.) Really, this is more like one of his best films of this century, Big Fish. [Burton fans/haters conveniently forget that he has made good films lately. They haven't all been Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and especially the awful Alice in Wonderland.] He uses a $150 million budget to create a lush, almost alternate retro world that's great to look at. Altogether, it's immersive, which adds to the enjoyment.
The supporting cast is all great. I love Chloe Moretz in most anything. She plays a grumpy melodramatic teen girl. There's a darling boy, Gulliver McGrath. Helena Bonham Carter is entertaining as a lush. One of my absolute favorite actors, Jackie Earle Haley. Eva Green is a great cartoonish, one-dimensional villain, totally nails it. A new discovery, Bella Heathcote, is a bit robotic but fetching. And Michelle Pfeiffer, reuniting with her Batman Returns director 20 years later. How cool is that?! (It is for me, because that's is one of my all-time favorite films. Good stuff, that.)
Also, this film unites the new Freddy Krueger with one of the original's first victims, played by Johnny Depp! Because that's how my mind works.
There are legitimate criticisms. There is humor, and sometimes it doesn't work. The film is set in 1972 because that's when the show ended and by that time it had gotten weirder and more supernatural, with ghosts, witches, werewolves, etc. But it also allows it to break free of contempo stuff like cell phones and Facebook, and be in its own isolated world. Also, some fish out of water humor that's more inserted than anything.
To be honest, the film is slack on story. It's more of a series of scenes and ideas than anything cohesive. Characters enter and are then dropped. The core is Barnabus versus the evil Angelique. But she's one dimensional, and the scenes are a bit tedious. She wants him as a possession almost, claiming to love him, but he rejects her, and is mad at her for his 196 years of imprisonment, killing his true love. Over and over, maybe four times. In the interim, he has arrived at his family home, but isn't playing along that he's from abroad, and not a vampire. That's funny. But the stuff about him not knowing what a TV is, so on, has been done before. Depp and Burton deliver a well-timed comedy, though, so it's nothing painful. Just, old. I didn't like the montage of Barnabas trying to find a comfortable place to sleep. I get it. He's a vampire.
Stories don't come together either. He gets his family business started again, but it doesn't affect anything. This vampire is living there, but everyone is rather accepting. In fact, the film seems to forget he's a vampire for long stretches. He wants to be human, but that's a lame idea. There's a duplicitous father, Vicky's backstory, this and that. Lots of little things, which, again, while not terrible, just don't add up, especially with such a left-field ending. The climax is based on supernatural superpowers. That I liked, even if it makes the family members sort of like video game fighter characters.
Those are criticisms, from my logical mind, but my heart, which I tend to follow more, tells me that this was entertaining. I was amused. I enjoyed what I was seeing. I like the performances, the elements, the production, the surprises. There's one scene, very amusing, where Barnabas is talking to some hippies, and there's a surprise twist at the end. Some people don't like the werewolf. They don't know it was in the show? The explanation was hilarious. This really is a comedy, you know. To me, it worked.
Danny Elfman's score is great. It's like the show. (I've seen the first few episodes.) No goofy comedy beats or horror jolts. He creates a constant moody, enigmatic atmosphere, matching the melodramatic tone, tying it all together. Except when it gets actiony, then it reminded me of Hulk. But that's just one bit. I loved listening to this movie as much as looking at it.
Plus, Alice Cooper! The real Alice Cooper! Who, like Johnny Depp, had a cameo in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. Cooper was Freddy Krueger's father! (The joke about "Alice" being a lady's name is an old joke, too, though.)
The internet will hate it, of course. This doesn't have a great Hulk moment, making it the 31st best film of all time. Most people will be baffled by its existence. In terms of originality, it does seem like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here. The absolutely terrible and even misleading ad campaign doesn't help that. But, if you go see this, I can almost guarantee that you will find it amusing, fun, and a worthy Burton, Depp project. It's extravagant and loving, a real tribute, considering the soap opera, at its start, was a cheapish rush job.
As far as TV adaptations go, it's better than, say, The A-Team? Probably 21 Jump Street, which originally starred Johnny Depp, who had a heavily publicized cameo in that movie.
Oh, and as an Internet blogger, I'm required by law to point out this has a real vampire and not a sparkly one like that Twilight bullshit. Could you imagine if I hadn't mentioned that? You wouldn't know how hip I was, not if I hadn't pointed out that I hated Robert Pattinson and Stephanie Meyers. Also, George Lucas should have died in 1983.
