REVIEW: Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows (2012): Dir. Tim Burton. Written by: Seth Grahame-Smith. Story by John August and Seth Grahame-Smith, based on the TV show Dark Shadows by Dan Curtis. Starring: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloë Grace Moretz and Bella Heathcote. Rated PG-13 (Plenty of blood-sucking and some suggestive but non-graphic sex). Running time: 113 minutes.

2 stars (out of four)

At this point, one may safely assume a new Tim Burton movie will not break new ground. He has found he can work comfortably in his pop-goth niche producing mixed results and he rarely has much interest in expanding his aesthetic or exploring outside the box. What he does instead is find new ways to play inside that box, or coffin, as the case almost always is.

This time he revives the late-1960s vampire soap opera Dark Shadows (unseen by me) for a tongue-in-cheek broad comedy. Mr. Burton’s pal Johnny Depp plays Barnabas Collins, the heir to a wealthy fish-packaging family who is cursed by the family’s young maid, Angelique (Eva Green), when he does not reciprocate her love. She is a witch, apparently, and transforms Barnabas into a vampire. She then turns the townspeople against him (torches, pitchforks and all) and they bury him alive.

There he rests until 1972 when construction on a new McDonalds unearths his coffin. To the old Collins manor he goes, to see what living relatives he may have who are willing to help him exact revenge on Angelique. The current residents of the Collins manor include Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer), her daughter Carolyn (Chloë Grace Moretz), her brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) and his son David (Gulliver McGrath). David claims to be able to communicate with ghosts (in particular his deceased mother), an oddity the family treats by hiring a boozing, live-in doctor (Helena Bonham Carter) to hang around the house and watch him.

Also employed at the manor are a drunken groundskeeper (Jackie Earle Haley) and Victoria (Bella Heathcote), a young woman who has just arrived from New York and bears a striking (perhaps even mystical) resemblance to Barnabas’s dead lover. (Did I forget to mention Barnabas’s lover was killed by Angelique back in the day?)

Not that any of this matters much. The lengthy introduction turns out to just be a set-up for gags involving Barnabas wandering around and marveling at modern innovations such as automobiles and ice cream. The jokes in these scenes are tired and predictable but, thanks to Mr. Depp’s unflagging enthusiasm, made me chuckle about half the time.

At any rate, the comedy is more interesting than the undead love triangle that is supposedly at the center of this dramatically limp script by Seth Grahame-Smith and John August. The movie fails to convince us its characters are worth even paying attention to, much less emotionally investing in their fates. A number of scenes drift past without leaving any impression.

Playing eighteenth-century vampire-types must be a walk in the park for Johnny Depp by now but he finds ways to have fun with the part. Bella Heathcote’s gaunt, bug-eyed face makes her a classic Burton babe and she plays the character dull and submissive, which is how Mr. Burton typically portrays innocent and virginal young women. Michelle Pfeiffer and Helena Bonham Carter are amusing in underdeveloped bit parts and Jackie Earle Haley, in a rare comedic turn, seems to be enjoying himself. The weak link here is Chloë Grace Moretz, usually a firecracker, who here stomps around in one-note teen angst.

In one of the movie’s last scenes, a character reveals a major secret about herself but kindly asks everyone in the room to not make too big a deal out of it. Fair enough. Dark Shadows is not a movie that warrants a big response. It disappears from the mind as quickly as an apparition.

- Steve Avigliano, 5/13/12