 Tagline: Every Family Has Its Demons From the wonderfully warped imagination of Tim Burton comes the story of Barnabas Collins, a dashing aristocrat who is turned into a vampire by a jilted lover and entombed for two centuries. Emerging from his coffin into the world of 1972, he returns to his once-majestic home, only to find the few dysfunctional descendants of the Collins family who remain. Determined to return his family name to its former glory, Barnabas is thwarted at every turn by his former lover - the seductive witch Angelique (Eva Green) - in this "wildly imaginative" (Sam Hallenbeck, NBC-TV) adventure. Storyline: In the year 1752, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas (Johnny Depp) has the world at his feet-or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy...until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better... Written by Warner Bros. Pictures Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, September 24, 2012 -- Tim Burton, purveyor of winsomely weird manufactured macabre, has had a tough go of things. With nearly as many directorial and producorial misses as hits to his name -- a narrow eleven to ten by my count, an astonishing eight of which have featured Johnny Depp -- the famously reclusive filmmaker has delighted audiences... before turning right around and leaving them cold. Yet every Burton film has its legion of devoted, often vocal fans, however small, and every last one has its own charms, however limited. At first glance, Dark Shadows struck me as a batty comedy destined to go down as one of the director's lesser efforts; a quirky but rather unnecessary feature film adaptation of ABC's 1200-episode '70s daytime soap. Flawed as it can be, though, Dark Shadows is more of a return to form than anything akin to an outright failure, and its semi-slapdash, monster-v-monster third act is the biggest thing that spoils the creepy camp Burton conjures up for the better part of seventy-five minutes. Cursed as a young 18th century man and robbed of his one true love by a jealous witch named Angelique (Eva Green), brooding vampire Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) is freed from his earthly grave after two-hundred years, only to come face to face with something more terrifying than he: the 1970s. Despite a nagging sense of honor, nobility and gentlemanly poise, though, Barnabas is a vicious vamp capable of slaughtering a dozen men in seconds, even on his worst day. With his fill of construction worker blood, he sets out to reclaim his old estate, where he meets his motley descendants: spook-spotting boy David (Gulliver McGrath), his inattentive father Roger (Jonny Lee Miller), icy matriarch Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer), her firebrand daughter Carolyn (Chloë Grace Moretz), loyal groundskeeper Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley) and David's psychiatrist Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter). But Barnabas is more interested in David's new governess Victoria (Bella Heathcote) -- who bears a striking resemblance to the vampire's long-dead love, Josette -- and a rival business heiress lording over the town and the Collins family fishery; an heiress who just so happens to be the same immortal witch that turned Barnabas into a vampire and imprisoned him two centuries before. Burning question of the film: is Dark Shadows little more than a thinly veiled Johnny Depp vehicle? Yes... and no. Depp elbows his way into the center of every frame with yet another marvelously mimed eccentric brandishing a scrunchy brow, wild eyes, and an uncanny fashion sense. His subdued but sometimes feverishly funny A-list castmates are often reduced to bit players -- whether by force, sheer skill or inadvertent comic magnetism doesn't enter into it, the results are the same -- and most scenes are constructed to serve Depp's impulses and indulgences, not vice versa. But let's not paint dear Johnny as the villain here. Burton and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith all but hurl the film at the feet of their leading man, failing (or perhaps neglecting) to make Elizabeth or the extended Collins family as fun or fantastic as her blood-sucking ancestor. Pfieffer and company are, more often than not, left to their own devices, each one crouched over a soap-y cauldron of the wacky and grotesque, but tend to evoke The Addams Family more than the original Dark Shadows. It doesn't help that the Collinses are such an eclectic lot, with children who see spirits, angsty teens hiding supernatural secrets, reincarnated governesses, groundskeepers falling under spells, doctors getting a taste of the otherworldly, and an ancient enemy hellbent on merging Barnabas' acquisitions with her own. Full of cheesy delights like the series that spawned it? Sure. Full of distractions and unwieldy subplots? Definitely. Although, at least in part, that's the point. The late '60s soap opera was full of cheesy delights, distractions and unwieldy subplots. And Depp -- who was so bewitched by the series as a child that he did everything possible to attach himself to the adaptation when Warner Bros. acquired the rights, including luring an initially hesitant Burton onto the project -- was vigilant in seeing his beloved Dark Shadows handled properly. While the comedy is certainly more intentional (albeit more restrained than its theatrical trailers suggest), the story more focused and the characters less erratic, Burton's Shadows is an ode to the series first and foremost, period setting, sullen performances, stuffy gothic romanticism, rigid relationships and all. Some will balk, some will swoon. For those who were swept up in their own love affair with the original soap, the film will be a nostalgic, refreshingly unassuming return to Collinwood Mansion and a high-gloss Depp/Burton team-up fraught with gloomy storybook visuals, CG flourishes, a ridiculous, supernaturally charged love scene, and a requisite assortment of '70s gags. For those who've never seen an episode of the series, it will be a strangely amusing mashup of glib genre tricks and groovy haunted-house treats and a movie that chains itself to its own overripe melancholy, introduces too many characters, and puts a bit too much faith in its humble TV origins and slowly receding appeal. When the camp-factor isn't draining the cheeky adaptation of blood, the cheeky adaptation is draining the camp-factor. It makes for a herky trip back through time and a jerky visit with the Collinses. Burton even takes more care in setting the stage for a sequel than he does in wrapping up Barnabas' long-standing feud with Angelique. And the cast? Pfieffer simmers then cools too quickly. Green has bite as a vexing vixen in the past but is all bark as a scorned '70s harpy. Moretz scowls, snaps her jaws and... that's about it. Miller can't find his way off screen fast enough. Bonham Carter lurches forward then putters out. Heathcote matters, and then doesn't, and then suddenly does again. McGrath has the thankless role of the boy who sees too much and does too little. Christopher Lee and Alice Cooper cameo, to what benefit I'm not sure. And Haley swipes a few scenes, even if his dim-witted caretaker shtick eventually stalls. It's hit, miss, hit, miss, and Burton never quite finds the balance he often achieved in his early films. Dark Shadows is still more of a purebred Burton flick, though, which goes a long way, and it's more of a self-sustaining dark comedy than an off-kilter carriage wreck. Had Burton maintained the momentum he establishes in the first act and much of the second, his adaptation would have been better off. Alas, style continually trumps substance, making Dark Shadows a film sorely in need of a smarter, sharper endgame. Dark Shadows doesn't fall flat on its face but it doesn't lord over other horror comedies either. At its best it's a return to form of sorts for Burton, who hasn't quite indulged in his particular breed of gothic fairy tale storybooking in some time, and for Depp, who does quirky and darkly eccentric better than any A-lister in Hollywood. At its worst it lurches and lulls, unsure of itself or exactly what it wants to do with a feature film adaptation of the original late '60s soap opera of the same name. Warner's Blu-ray release is much more consistent, though. Its faithful-to-a-fault video transfer impresses, its DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track is a blast, and its supplemental package, while a tad slight, covers plenty of ground. All things considered, fans of Burton and Depp could do a lot worse, even if they could also do a lot better. [CSW] -3.7- Judging from the reviews I wasn't expecting much but I was pleasantly surprised that it was a lot better than I thought it would be. I actually found I really enjoyed the movie, and Johnny Depp was great. There were a lot of sexual references and this movie is a bit dark and scary so I wouldn't advise this for younger kids. The PG-13 is about right. If you who like humorous vampire films and other films with tongue in cheek, slapstick fun, so stupid that it's funny humor you will love it. Although I sometimes don't like Johnny Depp's over the top acting I think in this film it was spot on. And with Helena Bonham Carter, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, and Bella Heathcote rounding out the cast I should have guessed that it would be better than expected. I would have to guess that you will either love it or hate it but it is definitely worth checking out [V4.5-5.0A] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box. Cast Notes: Johnny Depp (Barnabas Collins), Michelle Pfeiffer (Elizabeth Collins Stoddard), Helena Bonham Carter (Dr. Julia Hoffman), Eva Green (Angelique Bouchard), Jackie Earle Haley (Willie Loomis), Jonny Lee Miller (Roger Collins), Bella Heathcote (Victoria Winters / Josette DuPres), Chloë Grace Moretz (Carolyn Stoddard), Gulliver McGrath (David Collins), Ray Shirley (Mrs. Johnson), Christopher Lee (Clarney), Alice Cooper (Alice Cooper), Ivan Kaye (Joshua Collins), Susanna Cappellaro (Naomi Collins), Josephine Butler (David's Mother). IMDb Rating (10/28/12): 6.4/10 from 75,814 users
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