Based upon the television series created by Dan Curtis
Story by John August and Seth Grahame-Smith
Screenplay Written by Seth Grahame-Smith
Directed by Tim Burton
**1/2 (two and a half stars)
Just as I was about to arrive at the point where I felt that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's legendary cinematic partnership should perhaps take a lengthy separation, they found a way to rebound. Well...almost.
My cinematic relationship with Tim Burton did not begin well as I loathed his debut feature "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" (1985) and for the life of me, I still do not understand the insufferable hipster irony of "Beetlejuice" (1988), no matter how imaginative and visually dynamic it was. My reactions towards Burton's work began to turn much more for the better as his Gothic take on "Batman" (1989) won me over tremendously. But for my tastes and sensibilities, Burton struck cinematic gold with the stunning, devastatingly heartbreaking "Edward Scissorhands" (1990), his first collaboration with Depp, which turned out to be the beginning of a most fruitful partnership.
Now that it has been over 20 years (!) since "Edward Scissorhands," and we have all seen the greater trajectories of Burton and Depp's respective careers and artistic choices, I look back and wish my responses to their collaborations had been more uniformly enthusiastic than they have been. For quite a number of years, whenever a new project featuring the collaboration between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp was announced, I would grow very excited with the prospects of what these two very idiosyncratic artists would come up with together. But, in recent years, that excitement has dimmed considerably. Don't get me wrong, ever since "Edward Scissorhands," there have been a number of Tim Burton films that I have absolutely loved, most especially the glorious "Ed Wood" (1994), the deeply felt remembrance fantasia "Big Fish" (2003), the pitch black nightmarish musical "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street" (2007) and of course, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993), his wonderful animated collaboration with Director Henry Selick. But for too often, Burton's films served as near misses of varying quality as "Sleepy Hollow" (1999) and his remake of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005) quickly spring to my mind. And on occasion, some were flat out terrible. "Planet Of the Apes" (2001) anyone? Yeah, I didn't think so.
In all of those films, while we saw Burton's trademark gift for visual aesthetics, the excellent atmospherics, set and costume design and special effects more often than not, all seemed to be in search of a movie. In regards to his work with Johnny Depp, it was beginning to become tiresome to see Depp consumed with make up effects and odd vocal dynamics that were ultimately and futily in search of a performance. By the time of Burton's soulless and shockingly impersonal adaptation of "Alice In Wonderland" (2010), which supremely wasted Depp's talents in a "sure thing" of a role as The Mad Hatter, I actually felt like giving up. Perhaps Burton and Depp, despite the fact that they obviously love working together, needed to take some considerable time away from each other, give each other some space and maybe even miss each other enough to the point where they would grow hungry for something new, thus sparking the two to deliver their absolute best.
Now, we arrive at "Dark Shadows," Tim Burton's adaptation of Dan Curtis' 1970's cult horror soap opera and I have to say that for the most part, my faith in the partnership of Burton and Depp has been restored...to a degree. Seeing "Dark Shadows" was like watching two champion athletes in peak form who then sadly repeated the same mistakes from their pasts, thus dulling the cumulative effect. That said, and for quite a large amount of its running time, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp most confidently and creatively crawled out from their artistically stagnated grave.
"Dark Shadows" opens with a beautifully Gothic prologue set in 1760 Liverpool, as the wealthy Collins family migrates from England to America to begin production of a fishing port in Maine. Once the family's port business grows tremendously lucrative and the 15 year construction of the family mansion has been completed, the Collins family son Barnabas (Johnny Depp) seduces Angelique Bourchard (Eva Green), the family maid as well as the woman who has nursed a profoundly deep attraction towards Barnabas since their respective childhoods. Despite their brief affair, Barnabas breaks Angelique's heart by not reciprocating her love. Yet unbeknownst to him, Angelique is a witch, long seasoned in the dark magical arts who then curses the entire Collins family, bringing about the sudden deaths of Barnabas' parents.
Angelique's rampage continues as she places a suicidal spell over Barnabas' true love Josette du Pres (Bella Heathcote), causing bar to plunge to her death from a high cliff into the stormy seas below. Despondent, Barnabas hurls himself from the same cliff to shockingly discover that not only has he not perished as he too has been placed under Angelique's curse which has also transformed him into a vampire. Angelique then curses Barnabas' complete family, turns the entire town of Collinsport against Barnabas, and has him placed into a coffin where he is buried alive for all time.
Flash forward to 1972 as we meet the lovely, young Victoria Winters (also played by Bella Heathcote), who arrives at the cavernous Collins mansion, which is now populated by Barnabas' descendants and servants, to apply for the position as the mansion governess. Through Victoria, we meet Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer), the family matriarch; Roger (Jonny Lee Miller), her unctuous, buffoonish brother; Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz), her sullen teenage daughter; David (Gulliver McGrath), Roger's haunted 10 year old son as well as David's psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter) and Willie Loomis (Jackie Earle Haley), the mansion's caretaker.
As Victoria makes her bearings alongside the family, whose fortunes and fishing empire have been nearly depleted by Angelique who is now the town's ruthless empress, strange and horrific happenings are occurring. Construction workers have accidentally freed the imprisoned Barnabas! After slaughtering the crew due to his nearly 200 year vampiric hunger, Barnabas sets out for his manor where he meets his descendants. Convincing Elizabeth of his story and identity and making her promise to not reveal the truth to the rest of the family, Barnabas assumes the role of a distant relative from London who has arrived to assist the family financially and return them to their past glories. But upon meeting Victoria, Barnabas is struck by her resemblance to his beloved Josette. And then, there is the matter of exacting his revenge upon Angelique, who is none too pleased to see him up and around again.
Dear readers, I was really not very anxious to see a new Tim Burton film after the bad taste he left in my mouth from "Alice In Wonderland" as I just didn't think that I could go through being disappointed by him on that scale again. But, as "Dark Shadows" began, I was quickly relieved and even won over as the swift and gorgeous macabre prologue entranced me. By the time time the film shifted to 1972, I was hooked and just caught up in every moment and image Burton laid upon my senses. While I have never watched the original television series, the film, somehow, someway at times, gave me the sensation of maybe having had seen a fraction of an episode of two back in my childhood as Burton concocted a film that simultaneously feels very up to date but works almost as an artifact. Visually, "Dark Shadows" is as lush and luxurious as you would expect from any film directed by Tim Burton. But, it was a great pleasure to see Burton working with real world set design and locations again after the bloated CGI disaster of "Alice In Wonderland." Beyond that, the film is a moody, unhurried, unforced experience that weaved a pleasantly dark comic spell that also confidently found a way to envelop me in its spooky 1970's vibe. All of the requisite "fish out of water" humor never felt overdone and for quite a stretch of the film's running time, any sense of suspense and terror is dolled out in a quietly menacing slow burn rather than as a propulsive shock fest.
With regards to Burton's work with Johnny Depp, I am so pleased to say that this time, and even while his portrayal of Barnabas doesn't scale the heights of his greatest Burton film performances, Johnny Depp was a qualified success and his work certainly did indeed go quite a long way in rekindling my Burton/Depp flame. This time, Depp found the soul underneath the costumes, make up effects and funny voices to unearth a real menace, melancholy and tragedy as well as sinister comedy as Barnabas. He found the proper and delicate balance of sympathy, longing and terror of this character with his hollowed out eyes and his wonderful body language which often recalled the still frightening work of Max Schreck's iconic work in the horror classic "Nosferatu" (1922). It was refreshing to see Depp capture the duality and layers of Barnabas so fully and it made his work in "Dark Shadows" so spellbinding to regard.
As Angelique, Eva Green is Depp's equal. She makes for a formidable enemy as well as a sharply comic force and, I have to say it, a scorching and dangerously sexy figure to witness. When the two are on screen together, I found my eyes battling it out to figure out who to watch more as they are each so mesmerizing. I often felt that Green would almost eat Depp alive as her sense of rage and power permeated every scene in which she appeared and I appreciated her unquestionable skill alongside a visual and emotional chameleon like Johnny Depp.
And yet, something still went wrong with "Dark Shadows" for me where I was not entirely enthused with the complete film. To date, an adherence to a strong narrative has not been Tim Burton's strongest quality, a fault even he has admitted to in past interviews. He has repeatedly struggled with maintaining his narratives effectively time and again where a lot of his films feel like excellent set ups and bombastic pay offs that ultimately fail because we haven't had anything to bridge the two sections together. Quite a number of times, Burton's films feel as if they are movies without a middle.
In "Dark Shadows," I had that exact same feeling again as the sure handed pacing and overall tone gave way to forced humor and booming action sequences that seemed to arrive without warning. A revelation about the teenage daughter character seemed to be too abrupt and felt to solely function as a prefabricated device to make the audience cheer. By the time we reach the film's climax, the special effects completely take over with an overwrought battle between Angelique and the Collins family, that at times recalled Robert Zemeckis' "Death Becomes Her" (1992)...perhaps too much so. Frankly, where I was once completely at attention and involved, I slowly found myself becoming bored and disinterested. I realized that I didn't know as much about the family as I had wished to know or even had expected to know, especially after each member had been so well introduced. I guess that I had wanted some more character development before the blasts of shotguns and hellfire and I knew that more development would also have given a treasure like Michelle Pfeiffer something more to do other than look stunning.
While my issues with "Dark Shadows" did not derail the film as completely as it could have, it was problematic enough where that Tim Burton disappointment of the past reared its ugly head once again. I know fully well that he is a filmmaker of such unique skill and artistry that he is more than capable of hitting a cinematic home run again. I just wish that they were not so few and far between.
But, maybe "Dark Shadows" is a step in the right direction.
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