New To Blu: Dark Shadows

Sadly, Tim Burton has become a repetitious director that has fallen in to the trappings and off beat tendencies of his own films. Fortunately, I found that Dark Shadows was different enough  from his last few films to make it slightly enjoyable.

Yes, the one constant  remains in Johnny Depp. And that's a good thing. Depp is a reliable actor that can meld to almost any role. Whether it's a doped up Raoul Duke, a drunken Jack Sparrow, or the vampire Barnabas Collins, Depp always seems to be the shining light of every movie he stars in. I just wish he'd take a break from these big budget franchise films and go back to making films like Donnie Brasco. That's where he belongs.

As I found Dark Shadows a bit of a departure for Burton, the film still falls flat on an under developed script and some extremely unnecessary twists and turns. Besides a few chuckles, I didn't really understand why this was billed as a comedy. It's more of a straight effects driven remake of the original gothic soap opera. It doesn't really add anything new to the existing story and takes place in the same era as the tv show, making this a completely unneeded retelling of an established pop culture classic.

If you have a couple hours to burn, give this one a watch but understand that you're more or less watching it for the performances of Depp and Pfeiffer and the slight break away for Burton. Or you could watch Edward Scissorhands.