Do we all agree that it’s time for an intervention? Sure, Johnny Depp and Tim Burton love each other, and yes, it was a beautiful relationship at the start – Edward Scissorhands was a joy, Ed Wood a delight, The Corpse Bride endearingly odd. But the bad times have far outweighed the good, with their latest offering Dark Shadows proving profoundly lazy and derivative. And with two such immensely talented stars involved, it’s not only unfair to audiences to have to suffer through these increasingly mediocre offerings, but Burton and Depp themselves. Lads, you can do better.
Based on the ‘60s sitcom, Dark Shadows treads heavily over territory that Burton has oft’ walked before; an outsider struggling to understand American suburbia. In this instance, the outsider is Depp’s 18th century vampire Barnabus, who finds himself shacking up with descendants in 1972. An unfocused mess of plot points introduces characters you’re not sure if you should root for or against; Barabus’ spurned witch lover Eva Green, his innocent new flame Belle Heathcote and Helena Bonham Carter’s token appearance as an alcoholic psychiatrist.
Penned by Pride And Prejudice and Zombie’s Seth Grant Smith, the script’s extremely mild humour pans the rather sad spectrum of jokes about cars and McDonald’s stolen straight from Hocus Pocus to the tried-and-tested (and tired) technique of Depp saying, “Kiss my ass” in old worldly, formal speech.
Maybe therein lies the problem. At his best when writing his own material, Burton fails to imbue the script with any heart, leaving it all-Burton-style, no-Burton-substance. Watching Dark Shadows feels like wandering around an abandoned film set; a pretty replica of an imaginative world, but one that’s flat, empty, with no life or joy. It’s handsome, but soulless. Like Rick Santorum, if Rick Santorum were handsome.
Neither funny nor frightening, merely quirk for quirk’s sake, it’s time for Burton and Depp to start seeing other people.