I went the midnight screening last night. Two words - "hot mess."
I plan to pen a review later today, but here's my quickie reaction...
The film can't seem to find its footing. It's all style and very little substance. It starts out with a splendidly gothic, but very rushed prologue which ultimately turns out to be the best part of the movie. Once Barnabas is released, the film can't decide if it wants to be comedy or a drama. The term "dramady" doesn't work either because that implies a seamless meshing of those elements, which is far from the case here. The comedy undercuts any sense of drama or tragedy and I couldn't really feel for any of the characters. Equally troubling is the fact that they try to cram everything including the kitchen sink into a two hour film. The excess of characters and throwaway plot threads results in undeveloped characters and "out of nowhere" ideas. The "real world" elements completely destroyed the "dark Brigadoon" element I so loved in the OS. HBC was terrible, Eva Green was a very one-dimensional villain, and Chloe Moretz overplayed the angsty teen bit. Johnny Lee Miller is utterly wasted to the point where Barnabas' reaction to Roger's behavior seems a bit extreme in light of the fact that we only really get maybe one or maybe two scenes of Roger being a real d-bag. The classic series actors were onscreen for all of 3 seconds. At my screening, KLS' line was truncated. They cut into that scene in the middle of her sentence. What did she say?? I'm not sure if they were changing reels at that point or if it was just bad editing.
The visuals are stunning. Collinwood and the town of Collinsport look fantastic. In typical Tim Burton fashion, the visual takes precedence over the stortelling. Bella Heathcote put in a nice turn as Magtoria. Magtoria was a bit of fan service I think - trying to get both characters in by merging them. However, there isn't enough buildup between her and Barnabas. There is so much going on that nothing gets adequately developed. Depp... Okay, I can see Depp's love for Frid's Barnabas here. He tries to channel classic Barnabas in his voice and gestures and I appreciate that to some extent. I love that he kept the trademark look of the character too, but he is playing it almost like he's a kid pretending to be Barnabas. "Hey Tim, imagine how Barnabas must have reacted to lava lamps and troll dolls!" "OMG Johnny! That's so funny! We should totally do that!" Sigh. Michelle Pfeiffer was actually quite good as Liz. I did get a sense at times that her tongue was planted in her cheek, but overall she played the role with conviction and seemed to capture the strong spirit of Elizabeth. Gulliver McGrath was more or less wasted in a role that could have been something great. I saw some great potential in him. Johnny Lee Miller was an interesting Willie but ultimately he serves more as an underused sidekick than anything else. It was fun hearing some nods to the classic show (Barnabas' line about Victoria's name, the "Secret Room" Cobert riff, etc).
I saw snatches of DS here and there. In between the tangle of characters, lame gags, and multiple half-conceived ideas, there was some genuine DS happening. Unfortunately, these moments were fleeting at best and simply made me yearn for what could have been. In the end, this plays more like a messy satire of the classic show. I sense they were trying to play to every demographic and taste by infusing everything they could into the film, which resulted in an unsatisfying and haphazard amalgam of disparate elements. I am disappointed, but not angry. I merely shook my head at the end at the end of the film and walked out of the quiet movie theater (there were about 15 people there total and I was the only one who stayed to through the end credits.
BTW - Where was Cobert's DS theme? I'm surprised they didn't use it at all.
ProfStokes, your theory about Vicki is EXCELLENT and I think that's exactly what happened.
As for....
[spoiler]... Laura, I got the vibe that she's some sort of banshee considering how her scream sent Angelique flying into the chandelier. Or maybe it's one of her weird "ghost" powers? She didn't seem like a phoenix in this version.[/spoiler]
Full review will be on my blog later on.
Topic: Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Release!! (Read 348784 times)