Entry 2: RE: "Shadows" - An Auteur No More.

Posted by: Chad Van Alstin

What has Tim Burton become? The man who gave us completely original works like Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands has really lost his way. I know that Burton gets a lot of flack in the media already, but movies like Dark Shadows are the reason why.

While I think this time around the visuals were spot-on, Dark Shadows still lacks that subtle, black, humor that once made Burton's films so interesting. Instead it's just more conventional humor, and it doesn't fit with the film's gothic tone very well at all.

The sheer quirky, weird, nature of Burton's previous films are what made people laugh -- awkwardly. This time around all we're given is classic gags about people from the past being confused by television, lava lamps, and other modern technology. It's all been done before, and it isn't done well enough this time around to be that funny.

The visual flair that made me love Tim Burton's classic work is in Dark Shadows, but everything else that I came to enjoy about his movies doesn't make the cut. At one time you could watch a movie and tell, even if you had no idea what you were seeing, that it was a Tim Burton movie. He seemed to have his own distinct, auteur, style at one point. He really doesn't anymore.

I still think he's a very talented filmmaker, but his recent movies seem to leave me wanting so much more. I'm hoping that Frankenweenie is a return to form for Burton; however, the trailer leads me to believe it may just be an attempt to build upon the legacy of Nightmare Before Christmas -- a film often credited to Burton, instead of director Henry Selick.

Chad's Take: "Dark Shadows" (2012) - 2 Stars

Tim Burton's Dark Shadows is a visually stunning film; however, I'm afraid it's hard to find reason to praise the movie beyond that. Where Dark Shadows starts out strong, providing an excellent beginning to a would-be gothic classic, it soon fizzles into something that walks the line between mediocre and below average.

I am tempted to start this review by giving a plot synopsis, but I'm actually really confused by the film's narrative. There's something about a witch, Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green), who has placed an evil curse over the Collins family, a once prominent name in the New England business world. Angelique's most notable act of evil comes when she turns former lover Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) into an immortal vampire.

The Collins family made their wealth by dominating the Maine seafood business; this was of course until Angelique's curses helped her competing line gain a competitive edge. Yes, Ms. Bouchard's primary motivation appears to come from her desire to sell quality fish products.

Brad's Take: Dark Shadows - **

Dark Shadows begins as a comedy that isn't all that funny and ends as a thriller that isn't all that thrilling. Tim Burton's new Johnny Depp make-up showcase is as routine as it gets, pinning the actor under so much artifice that it's a testament to his talent, and maybe even a cry for help from the actor himself, that he manages to make anything of the drab material placed before him. Such has their working relationship been for the past decade; why should this be any different?

A real Who Cares? plot, if I've ever seen one, Shadows has Depp playing Barnabas Collins, a wealthy 18th century fishery heir who spurns the advances of the sexy witch of a housekeeper, Angelique (Eva Green), and is cursed into vampirism and locked in a buried coffin until dug up two centuries later in 1972. There, then, he tries to revive the family business, only to find Angie his chief rival. From there the tame antics ensue. I'm not sure if Burton thought a waterfront seafood cannery operation was an ironic choice of focus for a Gothic vampire "comedy," or if it is a leftover relic from the campy 70s television show, but whatever the reason it should have been scrapped in the second draft. But fear not, for Burton does not linger on any one thing long enough for it to become too boring in and of itself... he leaves that for the film as a whole.

I don't know if it's just me, or if it's a recent trend that characters seem to lack dimension unless you're wearing silly glasses, but Dark Shadows had me desperate for someone to grasp onto. Each character, including Depp's Barnabas, is crudely drawn, only demanding our attention when they are saying something funny, which isn't nearly often enough to justify a running time approaching two hours. And most of the comedy stems from pointing out anachronisms between the two centuries, and Barney's antiquated rhetoric as he describes everyday objects: "Curious terrain," he says while skeptically prodding a street with the toe of his shoe. I don't know how that comes across in print, but it did force a chuckle from me. Like it or not, them's the jokes in Dark Shadows.

I have not seen the original show on which this film is based, but it feels to me that it misses the mark. Similar to other recent adaptations of campy, decades-old television shows, like 2010's A-Team, Burton's Dark Shadows feels like he doesn't understand his source material, or what strange combination of charm and camp made it appealing to anybody. That or he does know and chose to ignore it. Again, I say that without ever having seen the original, but if the show was anything like the film, I can't imagine why anyone would ask for a $150 million dollar CGI fueled film adaptation forty years later but, unfortunately for us, somebody did... And Tim Burton delivered.

This Week's Movie - 5/14-5/20

Posted by: Bradley Redder

Dark Shadows
Directed by Tim Burton
Written by Seth Grahame-Smith
Starring Johnny Depp, Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloe Grace-Moretz, Bella Heathcote, Jackie Earle Haley, Helena Bonham Carter







Apologies for posting the announcement for this week's movie so late. We've been dreading the idea of committing to Tim Burton's Dark Shadows, but unfortunately there aren't really any other options. So there it is. Neither of us are looking forward to it, but for some reason I have an odd feeling I might actually enjoy it, despite the fact that I have gone unimpressed with Burton's films since the beautiful cinematography and mild charm of 1999's Sleepy Hollow. So hopefully he will break his streak, because anyone who endured the past week of this blog knows that I could use a good movie.

Watch the trailer below right now, and watch this blog all week for reviews and discussion of Dark Shadows...