lacks focus

Rating: 2/10 (11 May 2012)

i'll start by saying i've never seen any of the original series, or the other film. i have seen a lot of people on the boards saying that people who were not a fan of the series would enjoy the film, and that just the nit-picky fans were the people who disliked it. i really like tim burton's films, and i went in expecting something along the lines of his Gothic-eqse stuff. the film started out with what i thought would be an interesting story line, but i felt like it just sort of continued downhill from there. i didn't care for the character of barnabas, he came off rather horny and awful. they keep saying that he doesn't love 'angie' but he sleeps with her. that part of it just made me uncomfortable. he was supposed to be in love with victoria/josette but he's going around sleeping with the witch he's supposed to hate. everything moved rather fast, i don't know if this is because they were trying to fit in a bunch of story lines from the series, but it just made for a jumbled film. also caroline, why is she a werewolf? this threw me for a loop when it comes out at the very end of the film. i mean there are no hints throughout the film and then BAM werewolf. she also was this weirdly over-sexualized teenager which again made me rather uncomfortable, mostly because she didn't have anyone for this to play off too, she was only surrounded by her family. it didn't come off as a comedy, i didn't laugh once, and didn't really see any places where other people would laugh. admittedly i went to a showing and there were maybe ten other people in the theatre with me, which felt odd considering this was the only showing before it opens today (friday the 11th of may). i don't think it's the sort of film i'd recommend to anyone, it was a very 'all over the place' film, and the story lines didn't have enough chance to develop. the only thing i really did like about the film was victoria, and her back story seemed fairly interesting though i would have liked to learn more. honestly i think that's what this film needed, to pick out fewer plots to deal with and focus on the ones it picks. i think it would probably work nicely as a TV series, and i'm eager to get my hands on it.