At least it looks good...

Rating: 5/10 (17 June 2012)

I love the way Tim Burton's films look. He is undeniably a master of concept and dark designs. Just look at the sets and costumes of Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sleepy Hollow The list is almost as long as his list of films as a director. His set builders construct vast, intricate worlds that dominate studio lots, his costumers dress the actors in exquisite creations and the geniuses holding the makeup palettes sculpt hideous beauty that draws the viewers eyes.
However, beautiful sets and exquisite make-up do not compensate for poor direction and shoddy films and yet again I find myself starting a review with a defence of Burton with "Well, it looks good " I really wanted to embrace Dark Shadows and emerge from Cineworld proclaiming "Burton is back!" I really want to say that after a chronic dip in form since 1994's largely unappreciated but almost flawless Ed Wood, Burton has returned to the screen to fulfill the promise he showed with the heart-warming Edward Scissorhands and the anarchic comedy of Beetlejuice two years earlier. I want to but, as you'll have worked out by now, I can't.
Yes, in 2003 he brought us Big Fish. I thoroughly enjoyed it and have watched it a couple of times in the past year alone, but it isn't a 'great' and it doesn't hit the heights of his best work. And it certainly isn't compensation enough for Planet of the Apes or Alice in Wonderland! So what of Dark Shadows? It should work; it has great pedigree, the source is a quirky (cult, if you will) soap opera of days gone by, the cast is a cocktail of Burton stalwarts (Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter), new-to-the-fold stars (Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnny Lee Miller, Eva Green, Chloë Grace Moretz) and barely known stars-in-the-making (Gulliver McGrath & Christopher Lee ☺) and even the plot is an engaging spin on a familiar idea.
In the late 1700s, wealthy landowner Barnabas Collins (Depp) makes the grave error of resisting the advances of his maid Angelique (a delicious performance from Eva Green) who just happens to be a witch. She transforms him into a vampire and buries him alive. Two hundred years later workmen unearth his coffin and release him, whereupon Barnabas drinks their blood and returns home to find his penniless descendants camped out, suffering, embittered and unaware that the cause of their misfortune, Angelique, is also two hundred years old and that they've been sitting on a fortune locked in hidden vaults all these years.
What follows is a fish-out-of-water tale of resurgence, revenge, unrequited love, death, blood and a tired, embarrassing, pointless, gimmicky appearance from Alice Cooper. It has all the ingredients to make an amazing black forest gateau but somewhere along the line someone has attempted to make a sausage with it and ended up with a mess that won't even enhance the compost heap.
Cooper aside, there isn't really a duff performance. Depp is as controlled and delightfully off-kilter as ever, Pfeiffer engages as the matriarch, Bonham Carter reigns in her OTT tendencies to give a sad, sexual performance and Johnny Lee Miller's Roger is just enough of a nob to regard with enjoyable disdain.
The inescapable problems are the direction and the hastily cobbled third act that ran out of ideas. The right amount of effort has gone into casting and visuals, but too little has been spent on writing and crafting a film that deserves our attention. The final act could have been written by a committee of performing monkeys with a decent collection of DVDs as a reference point. It flops about weakly in a resolution of sorts that fails to get under the skin, excite, shock or even entertain adequately. The script plods, much of the dialogue is leaden and the overall impression is of a high performance car being driven uphill, backwards and in third gear.
Once upon a time, Tim Burton created; he crafted out of virgin clay and exhibited delights that surprised, thrilled and remain strong in our memories and hearts twenty-five years later. Here, he's borrowed, referenced, rehashed and recycled. Dark Shadows is a weak hybrid of The Exorcist and Mars Attacks! with a splicing of Nosferatu. Is Angelique anything more than the witchy sister of Lisa Marie's alien girl from Mars Attacks!? Even the sex scene, which should be hugely entertaining, and maybe a little titillating, is a diluted imitation of Jeff Goldblum's & Emma Thompsons in The Tall Guy.
It's a pity. It's a waste of a fine talent and a great idea. But at least it looks good.
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