Movie Review: Dark Shadows
Whacky it certainly might be but boring it definitely is not. Dark Shadows is classic Tim Burton
Movie: Dark Shadows
Cast: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green
Director: Tim Burton
Rating: 3
The new film from Tim Burton does something rather different than what you’d expect. It whelms you.
The film delivers precisely the satisfaction that a sympathetic audience would expect from its director.You will be whelmed by the Goth style, by Johnny Depp’s vampire makeup, quasi-English accent and occasional funny line.
Burton and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith strive to create a Lynchian/Twin Peaks episodic feel for the strange story which actually leads you to expect a little more than what you get after the initial 15 minutes of the movie.
Johnny Depp who plays Barnabas Collins, is an 18th
century millionaire who is cursed by a witch- Angelique (Eva Green) — for trifling with her affections. Depp wakes up, two hundred years later, in the middle of an ice storm in America in 1972 only to be confronted by his dysfunctional descendants, who are living off of the dwindling profits of the family business; which is being crushed by ruthless competition from Angelique, who is now a spiteful businesswoman. Barnabas now has to rebuild the family fortune.
Another interesting character is that of Helena Bonham Carter, who plays Dr. Julia Hoffman, the resident psychiatrist hired by the family to help young David come to terms with his mother’s death. Carter’s character of course does nothing of the sort and slouches about drinking booze with nameless pills which are to help take the edge off a working day.
The dashes of comedy in the middle of the dialogues keep the movie from getting drab. Depp’s delivery of the same is done intelligently and is charming.
The Gothic, jokey darkness of Tim Burton’s style is starting to feel very familiar and it enforces his brand to perfection in the film marketplace. The film does have shadows but they conceal nothing.
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