Dark Shadows (2012)

  Finally got to go see this!  Was it worth it?  Eh.

I have talked about this before.  I am a Tim Burton fan.  It would take a LOT for me to not like one of his movies.  This is the closest I have come, however.

I never saw any of the original Dark Shadows TV show.  It was slightly before my time.  If the movie is any indication of what was in it, however, it might be worth picking up on Netflix.  I feel like the main problem of the movie was that it tried to condense a long-running series into a two hour movie.  There were a lot of elements at play, here.  There's the supernatural stuff, the family dynamic, the time shift and there's just not enough time to pay attention to all of them.

Let me break the movie down for you, then tell you my problems with it.

Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) has it made.  He's heir to a fishing fortune, looks like Johnny Depp, and has an entire town in Maine named for him.  Everyone loves him.  Unfortunately, that includes the hot maid, Angelique (Eva Green), who is a basket full of crazy and a witch.  First, she kills his parents, then his ladylove Josette (Bella Heathcote), and then curses him to be a vampire.  At her urging, the townsfolk lock him in a coffin bound by iron chains and bury him.  Two hundred years later, workers release Barnabas accidentally and he returns home to find the family estate practically in ruin, the fishing business barely limping by, and the family reduced to Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer), her brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller), her daughter Caroline (Chloe Moretz), his son David (Gulliver McGrath), Willy the handyman (Jackie Earle Haley), David's live-in therapist (Helena Bonham Carter), and the nanny (Bella Heathcote) who bears a striking resemblance to Josette.  He also finds Angelique, aged not a day, and in charge of rival fishery Angel Bay.  She's willing to let bygones be bygones...as long as he swears to love her for all time.  Got all that?

First off, there are way too many characters.  The therapist, for example.  Completely unnecessary to the plot and could easily have been cut and saved for the sequel, if there ever was one.  I know that she's Mrs. Tim Burton and she's in every movie he makes but she serves no purpose here.  Ditto, Christopher Lee.  Completely unnecessary cameo.  With that saved runtime, maybe we could have devoted more time to the actual family.  Like where Elizabeth's husband is.  Never gets mentioned.  Or any sort of dynamic between the brother and sister.  Like, "Roger is lazy but resents Elizabeth for taking the head of the family position while she hates that her brother whores around but is afraid to confront him because she worries it will split the family."  To me, that would be a more interesting film than watching Barnabas try and court his reincarnated sweetheart.

I thought Corpse Bride was his weakest effort but this movie makes it seem like high art.  If you're a Tim Burton fan, I encourage you to rent this one.  I almost bought the soundtrack but they didn't include the "Go All the Way" remake by The Killers played over the end credits and that was a dealbreaker for me.