REVIEW OF DARK SHADOWS

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About The Movie:

Dark Shadows is a 2012 American horror comedy film based on the 1966–1971 gothic horror soap opera of the same name. The film is directed by Tim Burton and stars Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins, a 200-year-old vampire, and Michelle Pfeiffer as his cousin Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, a reclusive matriarch of the Collins family.

What Is Good About The Movie:

Depp's performance is more than just funny — it's ghoulishly endearing. He caresses each line with great care, as if it were a piece of candy he's unwrapping, and he gives Barnabas, in his very ''demonic'' intensity, a quality of almost elfin innocence that recalls the characters Depp has most memorably played for Burton: Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and Willy Wonka. But Dark Shadows, entertaining as it is, is a milder echo of those earlier collaborations. Burton references cheeky time-capsule artifacts (lava lamps, Troll dolls, macramé plant holders, the board game Operation). He piles on period pop chestnuts like the Moody Blues' ''Nights in White Satin'' and the Carpenters' ''Top of the World,'' and he stages a trippy grand ball presided over by Alice Cooper. I found a great deal of this stuff irresistible, but Dark Shadows is likably skewed fun that, at times, is a little too knowing about being a piece of kitsch.

The plot? Barnabas attempts to save the family fishery business — which means that he must once again face down Angelique (Eva Green), the witch whose advances he spurned two centuries ago and who got her vengeance by placing the curse of vampirism upon him. She now runs the rival cannery in town.

Green, who had such a complex allure in Casino Royale, here turns herself into an S&M vixen with a crooked leer of a smile. She and Depp have a supernatural sex scene (which gets a bit too gymnastic), but mostly she looks at him as if she wants to devour him, and Green makes that seem like a sick version of romance. By the last act, however, her performance literally becomes a special effect, her skin cracking like porcelain as she spews her toxic passion. Barnabas' heart, you see, is too pure for Angelique. He's saving himself for Victoria, the otherworldly governess. Dark Shadows, a kinky love triangle, is true, in its fashion, to the spirit of the old soap opera. Yet its real love affair is between Johnny Depp and the audience who's still hooked on seeing him get his freak on. B+

What Is Bad About The Movie:

Well I couldn't find anything, maybe I need to see it again...

Overall Grade:

A