2012
12A
Directed by Tim Burton
Story by John August and Seth Grahame-Smith
Screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith
Starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins
Michelle Pfeiffer as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard
Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Julia Hoffman
Eva Green as Angelique Bouchard
Depp and Burton. Burton and Depp. It's a bit like Scorsese and De Niro, if they made one kooky film after another, and didn't really try to make great films that people would remember as classics for years to come. Well, at least, that's what the popular backlash to the pairing would have us believe.
This is the eighth time that Depp has been the lynchpin of a Burton film, and, despite their first two collaborations, Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood being the best films Tim Burton ever directed, their most recent film, Alice In Wonderland, was not a career highlight for either man. Nevertheless, it was a roaring commercial success, so you would hope that Burton would have used this success, as he normally does, as leverage to make a passion project. After all, what could be more of a passion project than a film based on a campy soap opera that ended 40 years ago, and was unseen outside the United States?
As it happens, the film turns out to make all the same mistakes that Alice In Wonderland made, and some new ones too. It's a big, dull, meandering mess, and no amount of pretty colours or dated cultural references can save it.
The story concerns the story of Barnabas Collins, a wealthy young man, and heir to something of a dynasty, if fishing businesses were considered as such. Anyway, he makes the mistake of breaking the heart of a young witch who fell for him, and so she curses him by killing all of his loved ones, turning him into a vampire, and having him buried in a coffin for 2 centuries. Campy, gothy melodrama is well and present. We then cut to the early 1970's and we see a young woman, who looks a lot like the woman Barnabas was in love with, applying to work as a minder, or something to that effect, for the young child currently living in the Collins household, which, for some reason, the family still live in, despite the fact that it seemed that Barnabas was the end of the family line. Here we see Elizabeth Collins Stoddard and her family, all dysfunctional in variously comic ways. So that's them established. Through some contrivance, Barnabas is risen from his grave, and rejoins with his family, convincing Elizabeth to pass him off as some sort of European relative who is totally not a vampire. And I haven't even started to get into all the rubbish that concerns the family fishing business, and how it is circling the bowl, thanks to their rival muscling them out. The rival company is run by Angelique Bouchard, the witch who cursed Barnabas all those years ago.
Well, where to start? Grahame-Smith's script is an utter mess. It spins wildly from terrible dated jokes, to melodrama, to action sequences, with no sense of rhythm or pace. It really does feel like everything was written the night before, like a series of sketches. The story and plot are meandering and wildly disjointed, meaning it's quite easy to get lost, in a bad way, in a film that isn't actually very long, but certainly feels lenghtly.
Then there is Burton's direction. Either he could have reined all the silliness in and went for some level or consistency, or just went with the poorly written script, and went crazy with what he put on screen. Neither happens. This doesn't feel like a film that was made, this feels like someone put a huge pile of money into a blender and let it happen. Burton doesn't conjure up anything interesting that reminds you of the highlights of his career, this actually feels like some jobbing director being told to make a film like Tim Burton, without bothering to see what that actually means. A director who once was a distinctive voice on Hollywood has just become as formulaic as the things he was a break from, on this evidence.
Furthermore, for all the craziness, it's just so utterly boring. I actually drifted to sleep for a five minute segment. It's filled with expositionary dialogue, scenes with no point or purpose, characters that serve no purpose and are not developed... really not good enough. Those characters that are developed, are done so poorly that I really didn't care what happened to anyone in the end. When it isn't boring, it's trying to be funny, and it does a pretty poor job at that too. At least there is a vague level of competence in making the film melodramatic. The jokes and comedy scenarios constantly fail to crack the smallest of smiles.
Also, whoever thought Eva Green should play someone with an American accent should be thown to the wolves. Her performance is probably the worst element of the film, acting wise, although Chole Grace Moretz is a close second.
What's good? Well, it's actually looks nice, as you would expect from Bruno Delbonnel, and the performances from Depp and Bonham Carter are altright, although they are hardly stretching themselves.
Overall, it's quite possibly the worst Tim Burton has directed to date. It's not very funny, not very interesting, not much of anything. It just happens on the screen, for two hours. If the idea of comedy sex scenes, nonsensical plot twists and erratic character development float your boat, go right on ahead. I personally think someone should have driven a stake through this really ill-advised project altogether.
2/5
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