Review: Confused, rambling Dark Shadows (2012) sucks the life out of longtime Tim Burton/Johnny Depp fans.

Dark Shadows

2012
113 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

Dark Shadows is a movie with pretty much nothing to say.  It uses its culture-clash and fish-out-of-water narrative not for any kind of social meaning or parable, but purely for cheap offhand laughs.  It is filled with wonderful actors who all look spectacular but have little or nothing to do.  The film tries to play around with mixing supernatural horror, cheap comedy, and genuine soap opera theatrics, but nothing really meshes as it should.  It looks gorgeous as most Burton films do, the actors do what they can with very little, and the 70s soundtrack is filled with a mix of well-known classics and lesser-known hits.  Whether it is better or worse than Planet of the Apes or Alice In Wonderland is a moot point, it's simply yet another very bad Tim Burton film.  In short, Tim Burton's Dark Shadows can best be described in the same manner in which Alfred Hitchcock derogatorily referred to Ingrid Bergman: So beautiful... so stupid.

A whole bunch (9) o' character posters for Tim Burton's Dark Shadows...

I think Empire got these posters first, but thank you to Bohemea for making all nine into one easily-pasted image (Blogger is terrible with trying to line-up multiple pictures in an orderly fashion).  Anyway, above is the final theatrical one-sheet and below are the nine visually-striking character posters.  With just six weeks to go, Warner Bros has finally started the marketing campaign.  And I say good on them for waiting!  Now all they need to do is not release another trailer and not saturate the Internet with clips two weeks prior to May 11th and they can prove that studios don't have to spend a gazillion dollars on a year-long ad campaign for major releases.  Anyway, enjoy.

Scott Mendelson

Tim Burton's Dark Shadows gets a quirky and goofy trailer.

Well, this looks like somewhat of a return to a smaller scale for Tim Burton.  Yes there are stars galore, period decor, and various vampire/witch-related special effects, but this is a lighter and smaller picture that feels more like Beetlejuice than Sleepy Hollow.  Most of the 'fish out of water' humor falls flat, although Chloë Moretz earns the biggest laugh with her deadpan reaction to the climactic drug joke.  I could carp about a somewhat generic 'evil woman scorned' narrative, but I don't know enough about the original television show to protest what may be a faithful plotline.  Besides, if I may speak pruriently, Eva Green looks absolutely drop-dead gorgeous (pun intended I suppose), even if I prefer brunettes.  Frankly, the idea of a single and unattached bachelor spending an entire movie trying *not* to have sex with Eva Green verges on the ridiculous, but the movie does seem to have a goofy offbeat charm.  The best news is that this looks like less of a studio product and more of a somewhat idiosyncratic little flick.  It's still Tim Burton playing in someone else's sandbox, but it feels far-less mechanical than Alice in Wonderland (or Planet of the Apes for that matter).  Warner Bros. opens this one on May 11th.  Cursed release date aside, we'll see.

Scott Mendelson