Dark Shadows

Timmy, Timmy, Timmy. How far you have fallen since the days of Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Ed Wood, and Edward Scissorhands. This is when he had the perfect mix of carnival music, comedy, and the goth subculture. It was fresh, weird, and made you feel cool to actually be into it. And when you weigh 100 pounds in high school in a podunk town where everyone is overweight and drives 2 ton trucks strictly so they can go "muddin" on the weekends for fun, you need some sort of outlet that you can connect with. Don't you remember how excited you used to be to see his new movies, especially after what he did with Batman? He turned around a cool comic which became an unbelievably cheesy tv show and completely made it his own odd and eccentric vision. And the best thing in Hollywood's eyes is that it became mainstream and made a ton of money!! Sadly, I think this was Tim Burton's downfall, because then we got movies like Planet of the Apes and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Awful, awful films. He still shows flashes however with his wonderful, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Trust me, I am never one to recommend a musical, but it is his darkest and goriest movie to date. By the time Johnny Depp (his best role in years) is throat slashing patrons to death and then cooking them up and serving them to locals, you cant help but ignore the fact that you're watching an extended American Idol. So based off of this and an OK Alice in Wonderland, I was excited for Dark Shadows because it looked like a return to form, in spite of the awful trailers. But then again, I can't imagine what a trailer for Ed Scissorhands would look like today, especially the scene where Winona Ryder is twirling around in the snow. Yes I am 12 years old and was possibly exposed to too much porn in college.

So the movie starts out great. There's the melo dramatic scenes that take place in the year 1760 where Barnabas Collins (Depp) gets the curse of becoming a vampire put on him for falling in love with a woman who is not Angelique (Eva Green) his maid servant/lover at the time. She then turns him into the townspeople for being this monster and they bury him alive for what is to be eternity. But, some 200 years later, he is inadvertently released from his coffin by some construction workers who dig up his grave. And as soon as the coffin is opened he goes on a gruesome killing spree taking out everyone who is in shouting distance. So, so far so good. We have vampires, witches, blood, and Danny Elfman doing the score. But unfortunately this is the high point of the movie.  It's 1970 and Angelique now runs the town with her fishing business, Barnabas's family is dysfunctional and has lost their clout in the community, and he is struggling to adjust to all of the changes that have taken place over the past 200 years. And yes, believe it or not there are many more plot lines that involve the family psychiatrist, his nephew's father, the mysterious and sexy niece, and his new found love which is the family nanny. None of which are allowed to fully develop and all of which get lazy and glossed over resolutions. Instead the movie drags out for 150 minutes the fact that Angelique isnt over Barnabas, so you get scene after scene of her telling him she wants him and him denying her his love. Sounds like another awful vampire movie that shall go unnamed.

It's a shame really, because if they had spent more time on the writing and focused more on the storyline with his new found love it could have been decent. Also while this movie is really funny at times, there are many jokes which come off stale and tired and really take you right out of the movie. There is a particular scene that stands out with Depp and the local hippies which seems like it was written by Pauly Shore.

Overall this movie has it's moments but it is way too long and doesn't really have an identity. Unlike in his past films where Burton effortlessly combined comedy and goth undertones, it all seems a bit too forced here and leaves you wondering if Marky Mark can have this negative effect on everyone's career.  This movie is pretty WEAK and I would suggest waiting for it on Netflix.