Dark Shadows
Directed by:
Tim Burton
Starring: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva
Green
Johnny Depp stars in Dark Shadows, a reimagining of the classsic
70s soap and yet another collaboration between him and director Tim
Burton, bringing their total films together to eight. Also starring an
ensemble cast featuring Michelle Pfieffer, Helena Bonham Carter and Eva
Green, Dark Shadows tells the story of one Barnabus Collins, a
200 year old vampire who is reawoken and must adapt to life in the
rocking and rolling 1970s . After their last abysmal project together,
Alice in Wonderland, my main concern was that Dark Shadows’
story would be as chaotic and thin as Alice’s was. It is, in some
aspects, but it’s a vast improvement in many ways.
Dark Shadows is by no means a family friendly film; the violent and
sexual nature of the characters rivals some of Burton’s earlier work
such as Sweeney Todd, which certainly wasn’t intended for
children either. The dark and gothic tone is used well however, with
some scenes being borderline disturbing to watch. Unfortunately the film
fails to find a perfect balance between this unsettling tone and a
comical one; rather than being told with an even spread the mood of the
film jumps from one to the other, which was the main problem I had with
Alice in Wonderland. The film would’ve worked better if it had
had a stronger focus on one of these emotions rather than the wonky and
awkward balance Burton has chosen.
Depp’s performance is one we’ve come to expect from him, he takes on his
role as Barnabus well and he’s very likeable because of this. It’s just
a shame that it took so long to grow fond of his character due to the
way Dark Shadows introduces its characters. The film rushes
through the opening in less than five minutes and by then it already
expects us to feel sorry for Barnabus, who had just lost the love of his
life and has been cursed to live as a vampire for eternity. For this
reason I found it hard to connect on a strong emotional level with any
of the characters. Their feelings were as tangible as silly putty,
Barnabus’ in particular; in one scene he swears not to bring harm or
trouble to the Collins family yet moments later he kills six people and
is now a fugitive living in their house. It’s this lack of a cohesive
story and character development that prevents Dark Shadows from being a
rather good film.
Burton has learnt from his mistakes, seriously toning down the amount of
obvious CGI on display in Alice in Wonderland. While there is
still a generous use of it, Dark Shadows has a much more natural
feel to the scenes, and the dark and gloomy setting which juxtaposes
with the bright and relaxed nature of the 1970s is used to great effect.
Visually this is a beautiful film, and I wouldn’t be surprised if
it recieved Golden Globe or Oscar nominations because of this.
There’s a solid amount of special features included in the Blu-ray
release of Dark Shadows, including deleted scenes, cast and crew
interviews, music videos and featurettes. There’s some decent value here
and some of the content is quite entetaining to watch.
Dark Shadows is one of Burton’s better films in recent years, but it
still feels like he puts more effort into the visual side of his stories
than the story itself. This isn’t always a bad thing, the visual style
of the film works great and effectively adds to the story, however the
characters aren’t fleshed out enough to be memorable once you’ve
finished watching.
