Johnny Depp and Tim Burton are almost synonymous with each other. Their partnership as actor and director have resulted in great films like Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood. Recently, Depp and Burton's efforts have been hit and miss. While I enjoyed Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd, their version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory left much to be desired and lacked the charms of the Gene Wilder film. Alice in Wonderland was a soulless exercise in stylized CGI, despite the fact that it made over a billion dollars at the box office. For their eighth film together, Depp and Burton have chosen to remake Dark Shadows, an ABC soap opera that aired between 1966 and 1971. It's been a passion project for the two as both were huge fans of the series. The original Dark Shadows was a low-rated daytime program until it introduced the character of Barnabas Collins, an ageless vampire played by Jonathan Frid. Afterwards, the show became a cult classic and a staple of the early Sci-Fi Channel.
Frid recently passed away in April, but not before filming a cameo in the picture alongside several former cast members.
Succeeding him in the role is Johnny Depp, who recounts his tale of woe in the opening prologue. Beginning in the late-1700's, the Collins family emigrates from Liverpool, England to Maine where they found the seaside city of Collinsport and a successful fishing business. All is well for Barnabas until he spurns the love of servant girl, Angelique (Eva Green), for chaste Josette (Bella Heathcote). Angelique places a curse on them, causing Josette to jump off a cliff and turn Barnabas into a vampire. The townspeople lock him into a casket and bury him alive for nearly two hundred years when some unsuspecting construction workers release him.
Awakening in 1972, Barnabas is confounded by fashion, automobiles, and the Carpenters. His beloved Collinwood manor has fallen into disrepair as have his descendents. Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) struggles to keep the family business afloat and control her rebellious teenage daughter Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz). Elizabeth's shiftless brother, Roger (Jonny Lee Miller), spends most his days stealing from his relatives and womanizing. Roger's son, David (Gulliver McGrath), has been withdrawn ever since his mother's death years ago. The family has a live-in psychiatrist, Dr. Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), to help him cope though she's made no progress at all. The Collins family has also hired a new governess for the boy in Victoria Winters (also Heathcote), who is the spitting image of Barnabas's lost paramour. Rounding out the Collins household is Jackie Earle Haley as Willie Loomis, a drunken caretaker who looks like he previously worked at the Overlook Hotel.
Barnabas is shocked to discover that Angelique is still alive, having transformed herself into a pillar of the community having founded a rival fishing cannery. She has vowed to win Barnabas's love or destroy him.
As one would expect from a Tim Burton film, Dark Shadows features visually stunning costumes and production design. It's all captured handsomely by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, who previously shot Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie and A Very Long Engagement. The gothic atmosphere makes Dark Shadows seem like Beetlejuice with a budget, except it lacks any of the allure or originality of Burton's classic comedy. The fault lies within the scattershot screenplay by John August, which was rewritten by Seth Grahame-Smith, the author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. It's as if Grahame-Smith and Burton decided to cram several seasons' worth of storylines into a single movie.
Following the prologue, the film opens with Victoria's narration as she arrives in Collinsport by train. Logically, she should a main character and serve as the audience's point-of-view, instead she disappears for nearly forty minutes. She pops in and out of the third act with the love story addressed at the last minute. The same goes for Barnabas's relationship with David. It's said that David looks up to the immortal one, but none of that comes out because they only share one or two scenes together. The writers focus more time on how silly the 70's were with lazy gags about lava lamps and dirty hippies though there is a funny joke involving a McDonald's sign. The score by the great Danny Elfman lacks any memorable hooks while being drowned out by a soundtrack that includes Barry White, the Moody Blues, and Alice Cooper, who cameos as himself.
The weak story means the actors have to work that much harder. Michelle Pfeiffer, who hasn't worked with Burton since Batman Returns, gives a strong performance as do Jonny Lee Miller and Helena Bonham Carter, but none of their characters are fleshed out enough. Chloe Moretz is good as the sullen teenager with a deadpan delivery reminiscent of Christina Ricci in The Addams Family. Johnny Depp gives another quirky performance as the immortal vampire with the chalk white face and elongated fingers ala Max Schreck in Nosferatu. Eva Green is perfectly cast as the sultry witch Angelique and she's easily the highlight of Dark Shadows. Green plays it big in a sexy, over-the-top manner befitting the film's soap opera roots.
It may be time for Tim Burton and Johnny Depp to call a break, or, at least, devote their time to an original concept rather than an adaptation or remake. Dark Shadows pales in comparison to their past work. Dark Shadows has a hard time deciding if it wants to be a gothic romance, a dark drama, or a slapstick comedy and it fails at every instance.
Rating: ** (*****)
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