Starring: Johnny Depp, Chloe Moretz, Eva Green, Jackie Earl Haley, Johnny Lee Miller, Helena Bonham Carter
Directed by: Tim Burton

Yesterday afternoon, I was going to go to the mall to see, “The Avengers”, but I didn’t, because it was playing a little too late. It wasn’t playing at the time that I wanted to see it at, so I ended up seeing, “Dark Shadows”, instead. I will still see, “The Avengers” ’cause I’ve been dying to see that flick for a long time now. Here is my review for Tim Burton’s “Dark Shadows”…

Plot/synopsis: In the year 1752, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas (Johnny Depp) has the world at his feet-or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy…until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better…

I was skeptical of this movie, but I went and saw it anyway ’cause I am a huge fan of the original TV show with, Jonathan Frid. Like most Tim Burton movies, this was a so & so movie. As in okay. There were some good and bad things about the movie.

The good: the casting, costume design, makeup, movie settings (the Collins house was cool), film locations, cinematography, Danny Elfman’s score, etc. The bad: Script, it turned out to be a popcorn/action adventure instead of a horror soap opera like the TV show, the film played too much of today’s current music, it had bits of comedy in it which the TV show didn’t have.

It was just a typical Tim Burton movie like all the others. His style of film making hasn’t changed. I’m not a big Tim Burton fan anymore like I used to be. The last Tim Burton directed movie, I liked a lot was, “Mars Attacks”, he hasn’t made a good movie since after that. I’ll just keep this review short ’cause there is not much to say about it.

Score for “Dark Shadows” = ** (2 stars as in “Okay”)

Kev