Scarily boring.

Rating: 3/10 (2 June 2012)

Written by Markus Robinson, Edited by Nicole I. Ashland
As a comedy, "Dark Shadows" doesn't work at all, but as a film that goes out of its way to alienate anybody who hasn't seen the original 1960's cult soap opera, director Tim Burton (Alice in Wonderland, Beetlejuice) does a spectacular job. Not only does "Dark Shadows" fall well short of the 6 laugh benchmark, the eccentrically scattered tone of the film, which stems from this Seth Grahame-Smith (The Hard Times of RJ Berger) script, makes an under 2 hour film seem like a battle of attrition just to keep from falling asleep. Sure, Johnny Depp (Rango, Edward Scissorhands) looks like he had a blast camping it up as Barnabas Collins (his idol, no doubt)and Helena Bonham Carter (The King's Speech) is ridiculously superb here as Dr. Julia Hoffman (for the ten minutes she is in this movie), but for anybody watching, "Dark Shadows" is almost entirely a disappointment.
Side Note: I understand, there are a slew of other A-list actors in this film, BUT if I haven't bothered to name them, then their performances undoubtedly did not warrant it. Simple as that.
This Burton production is a revival of the camp television classic "Dark Shadows", now set in 1972, when one Barnabas Collins returns back home to his beloved Collinwood Manor (located in the tiny town of Collinsport, Maine) only to find that his relatives have driven what was left of his once lucrative fishing company, into the ground. Now he must take down the rival fishing company in order to regain his family's prominence. Oh, and did I mention that the head of the rival company is a vindictive witch, whom long ago had cursed Barnabas, transforming him into a vampire after killing his one true love? Oh, I didn't? Wellno worries because that storyline really doesn't add to the entertainment value of the film anyways.
The idea of remaking this cult television classic may seem interesting on paper, but in all actuality, the plot here is nothing audiences haven't seen a hundred times before in a hundred other movies. A man (or whatever) from another time is somehow transported to the present day (or near present day) and we watch as he stumbles around, struggling with modern electronics for an hour and a half. So, even thought it becomes quite obvious 2 seconds into "Dark Shadows" that, for Burton, this is a labor of love, it all really doesn't matter, because the storyline grows more and more uninteresting as the film progresses. I will say this though; the climax of the film is very entertaining, if not extremely weird in a very "Dark Shadows" way. But the amount of boring satire one has to wade through is not worth the payoff.
Final Thought: I'll make this short and sweet. As much as "Dark Shadows" could not have been directed by any other director, this is clearly not one of Burton's better movies. This is not even "Adam's Family" funny. In fact, "Dark Shadows" may only work to reinforce the sad fact that the only reason many middle aged people loved the original series, is because they were all seven years old when they first saw it.
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