Dir: Tim Burton
Starring: Johnny
Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green
Tim
Burton teams up with Johnny Depp again to give us a big screen adaptation of a
little known American television series.
Barnabas
Collins (Johnny Depp) is cursed by a witch (Eva Green), who is in love with
him, to be a vampire. He is buried by the angry townsfolk. Almost two hundred
years later, his coffin is unearthed and Barnabas goes about reinstating the
Collins family name. Unfortunately the witch Angelique is still about.
As you’ve
probably guessed from the trailer, the film has the typical Tim Burton style and
quirky characters in it. The style isn’t jarring and it fits with the slightly
camp and Gothic subject matter but after so many films with the same style to
them, it’s starting to get a bit dull. The most you can say about the film is
that it is fine. You won’t hate having come to watch it but you won’t remember
much about it once you’ve reached home. It feels more like a fun personal
project for Depp and Burton rather than a particularly interesting film for a
mass audience.
The film
never really knows what it wants to be. It has a fair amount of jokes, the best
being Barnabas’ misunderstanding of Alice Cooper, in it but it’s not the comedy
that the trailer makes it out to be. A lot of the humour comes from the fish
out of water situation of Barnabas, but luckily the whole of the film doesn’t rely
on this as it could become quite monotonous. It actually has a fair amount of
Gothic violence in it which sits at odds with its playful almost camp nature.
The film is quite meandering, without much of a solid plot to hold on to. The
main thrust of it seems to be making the Collins’ rich again and defeating the
evil witch, one of which happens but is then unspooled to no real conclusion. The
ending is wholly unsatisfactory as it throws in random plot twists, which seem
to only be there because they were in the television series, and action which doesn’t
lead to anything decent and just sets up an, at the moment, unwanted sequel.
An
entirely tolerable film but there’s nothing here which will really stick with
you. Makes you hope that Burton and Depp will doing something really different
together next time.
2 out of 5 Buttons
