Dark Shadows -
(May 11th, 2012): PG-13
Distributor: Warner
Bros. Pictures
Opening Weekend Box Office:
#2 with $29,685,274
Domestic Box Office
Gross to-date: $29,685,274
Gross Revenue: $66,385,274
Production Budget:
$150 million
Director: Tim Burton
Between 1966 and 1971, weekday audiences
were charmed by a gothic soap opera that aired on ABC and achieved huge levels
of popularity with its focus on supernatural elements, and now, over forty
years later, Tim Burton would try his hand at adapting this core material for
modern moviegoers. In terms of selecting
the correct actor to bring the fictional character of Barnabas Collins to life,
it was a seemingly no-brainer choice to cast Johnny Depp, who has demonstrated
a proven compatibility with the director and is in his element when embodying a
decidedly quirky and unconventional personality. When you consider the supporting cast of Dark Shadows, it seemed that filmmakers
were going out of their way to not leave the task of strong acting and
entertaining performance solely on Depp’s shoulders; rumor has it that Michelle
Pfeiffer, on catching wind of the project, renewed contact with Burton (with
whom she had worked on Batman Returns)
in order to ensure that she was included on this adaptation of one of her
favorite shows. Given the stacked and
well-known cast of Dark Shadows, I
had to question the logic of a marketing campaign that seemed to focus solely
on Depp’s star-power and outright ignore not only the pedigrees of other names
attached to the film, but also the important task of educating potential
audiences on the legacy of core material.
Putting it simply, with forty years between original and adaptation, simply
assuming that audiences remember the original can be a fatal mistake,
especially when you are tasked with trying to draw audiences away from a
record-shattering superhero film.
Dark
Shadows opens in 1760, with wealthy playboy Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp)
spurning the advances of a young witch, Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green), who proceeds
to vengefully murder Barnabas’ parents and young fiancé, curse him with
vampirism so that he may live with his grief, and then convince the town to
bury him alive in a chained coffin.
Fast-forward to 1972, where the remaining members of the Collins family
live in seclusion and struggle to keep their fledging fishing company from
being obliterated by heavy competition from the competing Angel Bay
Fishery. As fate would have it, Barnabas
is freed from his coffin by construction workers and makes his way to
Collinwood Manor, thoroughly confounding family matriarch Elizabeth Collins
Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer); Elizabeth’s rebellious daughter Carolyn Stoddard
(Chloë Grace Moretz); Elizabeth’s brother, Roger Collins (Johnny Lee Miller);
Roger’s son, David (Gulliver McGrath); eccentric caretaker Willie Loomis
(Jackie Earle Haley), live-in psychiatrist Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham
Carter); and newly-hired governess, Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote). Thoroughly ashamed of the state of his
once-proud family, Barnabas resolves to restore the business to its former
glory; unfortunately, he soon discovers that the head of Angel Bay Fishery is
none other than Angelique, who has not aged a day and is still resolved to not
only ruin the Collins family, but also forcefully obtain Barnabas’ love and
affection. Struggling to adapt to his
unfamiliar setting and adjust to his curse, Barnabas must confront his inner
demons and work to both help and protect his newfound family.
Few directors have as distinct a
style as Tim Burton, and I am happy to report that Dark Shadows showcases most of the filmmaker’s best stylistic
elements, with the production design, visual effects, and cinematography
bringing together a creative and thoroughly imaginative cinematic world. In portraying Barnabas as someone thoroughly
ill-fit in his current environment, Johnny Depp delivers a vintage performance
that perfectly showcases his distinct brand of quirky humor; and as a
complementary antagonist, Eva Green plays-off of Depp perfectly as a
joyfully-malevolent and sexy villainess that clearly loves being evil. And as I mentioned earlier, the film
introduces a thoroughly star-studded supporting cast, with each individual
actor embodying a distinct, interesting, and decidedly offbeat character that
you cannot wait to see develop.
Unfortunately, the reality is that audiences will be left waiting, as
virtually no effort is made to see these characters progress past their
introduction, which represents a thoroughly disappointing misstep when you
consider the talent involved; for instance, I would have loved to have seen
more from Helena Bonham Carter, who is shamefully underused. However, as shocking as it may be, the lack
of individual character development represents one of the lesser shortcomings
of Dark Shadows, as the incoherent
story and erratic writing squanders whatever inherent potential may have
existed for this newest “horror-comedy.”
If I were to identify and try to
explain every unanswered question or unexplored plot element within Dark Shadows, this review could fill a
small book, as this significant failure showcases both utterly incoherent
writing, and a decided confusion regarding thematic presentation. In nearly every one of the promotional
materials surrounding Dark Shadows,
the film was billed as a clever hybrid of humor and supernatural mysticism, but
the filmmakers were neither able to achieve a workable balance between the
genres, nor faithfully execute either thematic style by itself. The film does have a few good jokes, but they
all center on Barnabas’ time period confusion, but after nearly two hours, that
single focus wears very thin; in terms of the horror angle, it is difficult to
decide how to react to this seemingly “heroic” vampire, who coldly murders so
many people that it ends up being rather hard to root for his well-being. As for the unexplained plot points, when you
try to make sense of the reincarnation angle surrounding Victoria, the mystical
way in which David speaks with his deceased mother, or the turn of events that
lead Carolyn to transform into a werewolf (all of which are introduced and
NEVER fully explained), you are left with a headache and the distinct suspicion
that the screenwriters’ attention spans did not extend beyond five
seconds. Now granted, I never watched
the original show, so there is the chance that I am missing some of Dark Shadows’ appeal, but given that it
is likely that only a small portion of the audience is even aware of the
original show, I feel very justified in my criticism.
Even looking past the marketing
missteps I identified earlier, no one, and I mean no one, expected Dark Shadows to overtake The Avengers, but when you consider the
normal audience levels of the Summer Movie Season, a $29 million opening is
still a little disappointing. True,
anything would look rather meager when weighed against the fact that The Avengers made $103 million in its
second weekend, but with Battleship
and The Dictator opening this
weekend, a $150 million budget is one hell of a hurdle to overcome. Now, normally, a subpar opening can be
recovered with the help of positive word of mouth, but as I have stressed over
and over again in this review, the film is just awful, and I can’t in good
conscience push for the film to grow legs at the box office. Again, I don’t hold anything against the actors
and director, as I maintain that Dark
Shadows could have been a great film, but I cannot imagine how anyone could
have watched this final product and deem it satisfying and worthy of
mass-audiences…talk about an early contender for worst film of the summer. I can only hope that, when Depp and Burton
reunite again, they both take a breath and give the script one more
read-through before saying “yes” and allowing their creative input to be
overshadowed.
