Dark Shadows Review: Another Fun Burton Movie

  We got a chance last night to go see the new Tim Burton movie "Dark Shadows" and with all things considered the movie was pretty fun. The movie is based off of one of Depp's and Burton's favorite childhood television shows, so adapting an old show to the big screen was a lot of fun for them. The movie has an impressive cast, though in the end this was another movie to come out whose sole focus was Johnny Depp with everyone else as side characters. This was not necessarily a bad thing, Depp is always fun to watch, but at times one couldn't help but want a little more substance from the surrounding characters, maybe a back story or a plot twist.

    We'll do our our best here to not include spoilers in this review so no worries while reading it. The basics of the movie and story structure you can get from the preview, but to sum it up, Depp fornicates with a witch and later says he doesn't love her, this obviously makes her furious with Depp and causes her to give him the vampire curse and to imprison him for two centuries. Depp eventually is brought back and finds his family in shambles where he seeks to bring back his family fortune and keep his family united at the same time. The witch is still alive and starts causing havoc when he comes back in the scene like expected and thus you have the movie. Not necessarily the most thought provoking of all the Burton movies but it is a fun one.

     Out of all the Burton movies this was one of the best combination of talent within a movie, though Depp did steal the show the other characters did contain some substance due to the brilliant casting by Tim Burton. With people like Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Bella Heathcote, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Gulliver McGrath and even Alice Cooper made an appearance, with such a brilliant cast behind Depp the movie does carry some weight and does deliver an entertaining 2 hours of fun. Eva Green was radiant in her performance as Angelique, she looked beautiful and did a fantastic job, one could not help but notice her as she came on screen, it was perfect for her character.

    There was an issue with the movie though, the beginning of the movie was very well done, the back story doesn't take too long and it gives us a good background to everything we are about to witness. The middle of the story is good as well, we are thoroughly entertained throughout the movie by Depp's dialogue and character growth, but the end of the movie was weak. It went from being a good Burton movie to being something more along the lines of "Hocus Pocus" from Disney (not that that was a bad movie, it just didn't carry the Burton flare we love), so 80% of the movie is really well done, but the end felt a little weak, especially the line "wolf", once you see the movie you'll know what we're talking about and agree that it was unnecessary and cheesy.

      Even though the end of the movie is a tad cheesy we would still recommend this movie as a fun escape from the troubles of life, so a good weekend getaway. This is a classic Burton movie, we got the dark elements we love, the movie isn't necessarily scary but nor is it really funny, it just exists in the strange bizarre world that is Burton's mind. If you are accustomed to his work and enjoy his movies then you'll really like this movie, if you aren't a fan of Burton then don't go watch it for this movie from beginning to end is a "Burton" production. We had a lot of fun watching the movie and even though we would never give the movie more than a 3.5/5 we still would watch it again if the opportunity presented itself.

      We hope this week of graduations, finals exams and last get togethers with friends and family was a good one, we pray that this weekend may be a great and relaxing one for all of you,

Love from your humble blogger,