Dark Shadows early review

[JasonEvans]

Ohmygod!! What a mess!!!

Stay away... stay far away!!

The thing that angers me the most is that they are marketing this film as a comedy. Yes, it has a number of funny moments, but there is a ton of gore and death and the whole thing is just very, very dark. The trailers and commercials make you think of Adams family. But I don't recall Fester brutally killing scores of innocent people!?!?! Plus, almost every joke is something about Depp being a man out of time -- a man used to the 1700s suddenly finding himself in the 1970s. They make the same gags over and over again. It is tired and just bad.

The story is totally disjointed. It feels like a series of random scenes. Characters are introduced and have a few lines that make them seem important to the story and then they disappear for 30 minutes with no explanation. You could tell it was going to be a disaster of a story when they spend the first 5 minutes of the film mostly having Johnny Depp narrate what was going on so we could understand all the back-story. If a movie needs to spend a lot of time with a narrator explaining what is going on, it is always a bad sign. As bad as the opening was though, the ending is even worse. It makes no sense at all. One of the characters suddenly, randomly, turns into a werewolf. That was the moment I decided I could not say anything good about the film. I am not concerned about spoiling anything for you all because I am guessing you will be smart enough not to see the movie anyway... and the werewolf thing doesn't really matter anyway. It is just random and nonsense.

Depp is having fun here, his olde English lines are amusing and the best part of the film, but there is just no logic to what is going on. I laughed a little, but spent most of the movie in utter shock that all these fine actors could have read this script and said, "that makes sense. I'll make that movie." I guess they all just really trust Tim Burton. If you ask me, that trust was mis-placed.

I bet this thing just gets killed at the boxoffice... reviews will be bad and I have no idea who the audience is. I can't figure out who is going to walk out of that movie and tell a friend to go see it.

-Jason "if it makes $100 mil, I'll be shocked" Evans

[bjornolf]

Depp does have a ginormous female following that would watch him read the phonebook for three hours and be entertained. I wouldn't be surprised if it did okay. Plus, if it gets out that it's horror, those fans will show cause they figure every horror movie gets jobbed by the critics. I doubt it'll vie for top 5, but it'll do okay.

Plus, if we're not talking top 5, worldwide matters, and isn't Depp's following overseas ridiculously huge?

[cf-62]

Jason,

Let's say you knew somebody, say a spouse, that had been pushing back on seeing Dark Shadows because it looked like a comedy - and that's not how they remember the show (your first stated disappointment with the movie essentially being a huge bright spot for her), would that change your overall impression an iota?

I guess ultimately, we could have all guessed that it would be on the more horror movie side. I mean, IMAX? For a non-cartoon comedy? Doesn't make much sense. But IMAX for a Vampire movie - that makes more sense.

I don't know that we'll stay away - just too much invested in vampires (especially Dark Shadows) - and Johnny Depp - and IMAX - to not be something we see.

But I'd be interested in your opinion if you hadn't been "hoodwinked" into attending a comedy that wasn't funny.

[JasonEvans]

Jason,

Let's say you knew somebody, say a spouse, that had been pushing back on seeing Dark Shadows because it looked like a comedy - and that's not how they remember the show (your first stated disappointment with the movie essentially being a huge bright spot for her), would that change your overall impression an iota?

I guess ultimately, we could have all guessed that it would be on the more horror movie side. I mean, IMAX? For a non-cartoon comedy? Doesn't make much sense. But IMAX for a Vampire movie - that makes more sense.

I don't know that we'll stay away - just too much invested in vampires (especially Dark Shadows) - and Johnny Depp - and IMAX - to not be something we see.

But I'd be interested in your opinion if you hadn't been "hoodwinked" into attending a comedy that wasn't funny.

I was put off a lot more by a story that felt random and messy than I was by a comedy that had tinges of horror in it.

I'll tell you, though, the film is neither horror nor is it comedy. It is so haphazard, it does not really fall into any genre.

-Jason "looking on Rotten Tomatoes (currently at 35%), even the positive reviews are tinged with lots of criticism" Evans

[brevity]

It is so haphazard, it does not really fall into any genre.

This reminds me of Sweeney Todd in a way. Too gory for the Oscar crowd, too Oscar-y for the gore crowd.

Thank you for your sacrifi -- uh, public service.

[allenmurray]

Thanks for the warning Jason. I loved Edward Scissorshands and Charlie & the Choc. Factory. Thus, I was loking forward to this collaboration between Burton and Depp. When I saw the trailer I though it looked hilarious, but that feeling was quickly replaced by thinking that the movie probably only had three good minutes and I had just seen them all.

Sounds like waiting for the dvd is a good plan here. It is also one of the few times I found myelf thinking during a trailer that the movie would have probably worked better if they had given up ontrying to get a PG-13, targetted it just to adults, and gotten an R rating.

[BlueDiablo]

Thanks for the review, Jason.

I'd be more interested in this movie if it was pure comedy. Burton doesn't seem to have a good touch with gothic horror. I think that's where Sleepy Hollow went so wrong. I liked the trailers, but I think I'll pass on this one.

[JasonEvans]

I probably harshed on it too much. Some critics are ok with it as it is in the low-40s on Rotten Tomatoes, which is not a disastrous score. But, I am really enjoying some of the negative reviews:

How bad is "Dark Shadows"? It makes you long for a "Twilight" movie. That's bad - Tom Long, Detroit News

Can't decide whether it's a parody, a horror comedy, an atmospheric melodrama, or a tedious bucket of !@#^@#. Eventually it chooses the last one. - Eric Snyder /Film

Burton fails on levels I wouldn't have imagined possible. - Rob Vaugh, Mania.com

It has not a clue what to do once it's set everything in motion. - Matt Soregel, Florida Times-Union

Screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith wrote the turd, and Tim Burton rolled it in glitter. - Cameron Williams, The Popcorn Junkie

A movie that heads in so many directions it's a wonder Depp didn't get whiplash. - Ann Lewison, Kansas City Star

Shockingly, appallingly inept, and it keeps getting worse and worse, as if it were descending into its very own circle of cinematic hell. - Flick Filosopher

And finally, there is this review from my good friend Matt Goldberg who writes for Collider.com:

Tim Burton‘s Dark Shadows is a series of flawed assumptions resulting from remarkable incompetence.

There’s nothing particularly infuriating about the film, because fury would require passion. Dark Shadows wants to be frightful, but it’s just frightfully dull.

-Jason "to be fair, there are some good reviews... but I think those folks saw a different film than I did" Evans

[Acymetric]

I wasn't aware that this was any kind of remake until I read Jason's post, but he pretty much confirmed what I thought after I saw the previews...looks pretty bad.

[cf-62]

"I don't get it."

I found it to be an enjoyable 2 hours (or 1:53). Elements of Burton. Elements of Depp. A love story, wrapped around a dark comedy - sounds like a Tim Burton movie.

The plot was thin, and given the cast of interesting characters, more could have been done, but the story was really about Barnabus and Angelique.

To be honest, I found it as enjoyable as Cabin - and more enjoyable than Super 8, which I found fairly pedestrian (I know it wasn't, but I really protest the "kiddification" of a movie to get it into a more "family" oriented aspect. If I want to watch a kid protagonist, I'll get a Disney movie).

Next up in iMax is MIB3 - then Prometheus. I see Battle Royale comes out next week, and the critics have decided to screw the R/T readers again with a "B movie" rating of 83. Give me a break. They give it a positive score, then write that "the movie stinks - or is excessive, - but that's what fun B movies are for." Argghh

Anyway, if you like Tim Burton, or Johnny Depp, or Eva Green, then go see Dark Shadows.

[DevilWearsPrada]

As a female, Johnny Depp anything is always awesome!!!! I love JD and Burton movies! I will go see Dark Shadows! Yes, the ladies love JD!

[JasonEvans]

As a female, Johnny Depp anything is always awesome!!!! I love JD and Burton movies! I will go see Dark Shadows! Yes, the ladies love JD!

Better hurry. This stinker is rapidly exiting theaters. I am betting it will lose thousands of screens next weekend. It only made $7.5 mil this weekend.

-Jason "you are better off watching him in one of his lesser seen films -- did you see The Rum Diary or The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus?" Evans