Film Review: Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows. Rated M (fantasy themes and violence). 113 minutes. Directed by Tim Burton. Written by Seth Grahame-Smith. Based on the television series created by Dan Curtis.

Verdict: Tim Burton respectfully pays a debt while the rest of us are left to wonder why.

Not having seen Dark Shadows – the American television series that inspired this latest collaboration between Mr Burton and his frequent collaborator Johnny Depp (they have made eight films together) – you may find yourself with a distinct disadvantage. Without any knowledge of the series Mr Burton adored as a young boy, we’re left to consider his Dark Shadows on its own merits – which, regrettably, are few and far between.

When Barnabas Collins (Mr Depp) spurns the romantic advances of the witch Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green), she forces his lover Josette DuPres (Bella Heathcote) to leap to her death from a clifftop before turning Barnabas into a vampire and burying him alive. Fast forward to 1972, and when an unfortunate group of construction workers inadvertently release Barnabas from his coffin, the ever-polite vampire returns to his family estate to restore it and his family name to their former glory. When Angelique discovers that Barnabas is free again, centuries old passions and tensions are rekindled – with calamitous consequences.

The laughs, such as they are, originate from Barnabas’s collision with production designer Rick Heinrichs’ picture-perfect recreation of the iconic 1970s and the superb, Burtonesque Collinwood Manor. The performances around Mr Depp’s masterfully understated posturing through the lead role are mostly uneven, a result of Mr Grahame-Smith’s script that fails to go the distance when it matters most. Instead, convoluted subplots (particularly the one involving Ms Heathcote’s reincarnated Josette) remain annoyingly weak, disconnected and unformed.

Visually, as we come to expect from Mr Burton, the film is brimming with grand, atmospheric flourishes and flair – all stylishly photographed by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Amelie). But even that is not really enough to help ease the slippery sense that this Dark Shadows somehow means more to those intimately involved in its creation than it could ever possibly hope to mean to its audience.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

Film review: Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland. 108 minutes. Rated PG. Directed by Tim Burton; Written by Linda Woolverton; Based on the books by Lewis Carroll.

If there is a more vibrantly impulsive and startlingly creative director than Tim Burton (Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands) working in films today, then I'd like to know who it is. With supreme confidence and his delightful trademark flamboyance, Burton brings the adventures of young Alice Kingsley to the screen in a dazzling frenzy of computer-generated colour and constant motion. But strangely – and most unusually for Burton – little else.

19-year-old Alice (an enigmatic Mia Wasikowska, pictured above) needs a moment. She has just been proposed to (in front of an overwhelming number of friends and family members) by a young man for whom she only feels a mannered contempt. Fleeing from the pressure of being expected to accept his proposal, Alice stumbles upon a large rabbit hole at the base of a tree. Leaning slightly further into the hole than she should in the hope that she might find the mysterious waistcoat-wearing white rabbit she has seen scampering around in the shrubs, she falls in, and spirals down into the fantastic and hazardous world of "Underland" where she must fulfill her promise to become the champion who will restore power to the White Queen (Anne Hathaway, who underplays the role almost out of existence).

Linda Woolverton's (one of the three script writers of Disney's The Lion King) script is a marvellously efficient re-telling of the evergreen and much-loved story, and most of the performances (particularly from Helena Bonham Carter as the hilarious, game-obsessed 'Red Queen') are delightfully quirky and larger than life. Colleen Atwood's (Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha, Nine) costumes are magnificent, while Pirates of the Caribbean cinematographer Dariusz Wolski joins the dots with a few too many travelling shots. Production Designer Robert Stromberg (who graduated from Visual Effects to Production Designer for James Cameron's Avatar) has woven a special, but increasingly familiar, magic with the gorgeous environments – particularly the ruined castle in which Alice's battle with a fearsome Jabberwocky (a technological tour de force) for rule of the dominion takes place.

The lasting impression, however, is that something is missing – and it's not difficult to appreciate what that might be. Yes, it all moves along at a furious pace and the many and various interactions between the computer-generated and human characters is technically flawless. But somewhere along the line, with all the technical possibilities at his disposal, Burton appears to have misplaced the story's heart. He's not helped, either, by a surprisingly unengaging performance from his regular 'star' Johnny Depp who, while he wears Paul Gooch's arresting 'Mad Hatter' make-up with typical aplomb, turns in a disappointingly grim, almost perfunctory performance.

And for a film that makes continual claims as to how the most interesting people are "mad" (which in the era of Carroll's novels meant 'special'), it all lacks the requisite uniqueness and individuality – yes, joyfully unrestrained madness – that, not only might we have expected from a director with Burton's pedigree, but that would have ensured the film was a far more engrossing and memorable experience than it ends up being.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and an edited version of it was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.