Dark Shadows

Burton’s stylization is beginning to bother me a bit. He’s a good director, but everything looks just a bit distant. Depp acting is excellent, Eva Green is demonically beautiful and the rest of the family maintains a good standard. The atmosphere is extremely good, but Dark Shadows doesn’t exploit its full potential, where it should step on the gas, it puts on the brakes for the good of family fun. 70s music great, but it doesn’t come near to Elfman who was on great form again here. "Love means never having to say you're sorry..." However, it is with sincere regret that I must now kill all of you. (15/09/2012)

It's such a shame that Dark Shadows came along just as most viewers were running out of patience with Tim Burton. I actually like the master of strangeness, and the story of Barnabas Collins seems better to me than the quickly fading Alice in Wonderland or the even more Burton-esque Sweeney Todd. There are a lot of oddities happening at Collinwood that amaze me with the director's imagination, or t which I can hardly resist laughing. Johnny Depp works perfectly as an atypical protagonist without batting an eye, and the rest of the film is stolen by the pubescent princess Chloë Grace Moretz even in a smaller space. Riding the waves of Danny Elfman's soundtrack, I made it to 90% with a slight reserve for distance and further projection, which a few years later confirmed that the rarely appreciated spectacle got stuck on the turbulent cliffs of the time. (30/05/2012)

Irresistible costumes, makeup and vivid colors create a cute floral seventies atmosphere (with great opening credits). There are a few cute references and allusions, but you would expect more from Johnny Depp’s ancient vampire’s interactions with the modern world. Dark Shadows is an eccentric film that attempts to pay homage to all kinds of things Burton likes, but it’s surprisingly not very funny and the characters are just iconic figures in a story that won’t absorb you. It’s a stylish farce that looks good but has no heart or emotion. Tim Burton seems to be drying up, which is a shame. It reminded me of Death Becomes Her. (07/05/2012)

Tim Burton's dumbest and most boring film, and I say that as a great admirer of his. So, let's summarize. Typical Burton goofy humour? There’s none of it. Burton's famous bizarre visual styling? Non-existent. The always so distinctive music of Elfman? I didn’t catch it. Immersive plot? Plot? What plot? So what the hell, at least some minor tidbits, like Barnabas's confrontation with modern times? Criminally underused. I'll let Barnabas's fangs bite me if I'm making this up, but these were my two longest hours at the movies in years. (13/05/2012)

Congratulations to Tim Burton for once again managing to make a bad film. And this time he tried really hard. Not a bit of darkness. Under the surface, another annoying wannabe stylish crap with a heavily made-up Johnny in the main role and an elite cast that has nothing to do under Burton’s direction. Awful, the only good thing is the soundtrack. (01/09/2012)