Felt like a collection of gags

Rating: 6/10 (13 May 2012)

Note: I have not watched the original series.
The vampiric fish out of the water concept is fertile ground for jokes, as convincingly shown by the trailer. But Tim Burton overdid it. While there are a few funny scenes around there, a lot of it felt like the he went out of the way for certain scenes just because "that would be funny", and not enough attention was given to the central plot.
There are also so many subplots that were introduced but were left undeveloped or partially developed. I thought the character Vicky was severely underdeveloped. She looks like she had an intriguing past but the minute-long exposition didn't do justice to it. There are a whole slew of potentially interesting characters - Dr. Hoffman, David, and Elizabeth - that turned out to be incredibly one-dimensional. And the werewolf scene felt like an out-of-place "oh, by the way" moment.
The romance between Barnabas and Josette/Vicky is just banal. The love-hate relationship between Barnabas and Angelique was way more interesting, however their time together on screen was mostly devoted to "sh*t and giggles". The lines that Barnabas said to Angelique as she meets her doom was so cheesy it made me cringe.
All in all, it was entertaining alright. The set looks great, so does the costumes and make up. But the film was so focused on its campiness aspect that it ended up sorely lacking in depth and momentum. There just wasn't a consistent, proper build up from the beginning to the end, and felt like a compilation of gags intended to amuse/entertain, but not to engage.