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Archive for Johnny Depp

Dark Shadows – Why?

May22

Title: Dark Shadows (2012)

Cast: Johnny Depp (Actor), Michelle Pfeiffer (Actor), Tim Burton (Director)

Genre: Vampire Comedy

Watched:  May 19, 2012

Summary: Why? Just why?

_

My dedication to all things vampire made me see it. I swear.

One wonders if Tim Burton ever works with anyone other than Johnny Depp. But the issue here isn’t really Depp’s deadpan Deppist performance, which is certainly one of the better things about the film. It’s basically in the meta creative choices and the writing. The source material is long, dramatic, or rather melodramatic, and convoluted. It involves stories being woven out over many episodes (1991) or years (2800 episodes of the original!). Any comedy was inadvertent.

Not so much here. There is no backstory. Instead, what happened between Barnabus in the 18th century (involving his affair with the witch Angelique and the subsequent death of his lover and conversion into vampire) is spelled out in a quick prelude. This is the best part of the film and the least comic. But its presence also leaves no room for any sense of mystery.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpWvkFlyl4M]

Then cut to 1972 and the awakening of our entombed hero. For a few moments the fish out of water comedy is funny, even if it’s all in the trailer. But that’s about it. There is pretty much zero character development here. The creators shove in a large number of characters from the original, even if in mutated form, but there is so much time spent with Depp that everyone else (with the possible exception of Angelique) is anemic at best. There isn’t even an attempt at a character arc for anyone. The conflict is minimal and simplistic. In fact, the movie devolves into a kind of “we have to save the family business” rivalry type film, even including one of my least favorite Hollywood devices: “everything can be fixed with a good party.” Which includes a 1972 Alice Cooper who looks exactly like 2012 Alice Cooper. But even the lame business conflict line is underwritten. The second half was just boring.

There are a few good moments of visual or deadpan humor, mostly involving slightly esoteric riffs to vampire fans. Willy’s character is good. Chloe Moretz is cute but stuck with perpetual curled lip. Eva Green is confused but sexy. Depp seems to have blended Jack Sparrow, Hunter S Thompson, and Max Schreck. I like what he does with his pointy fingered hands. He pivots up unnaturally out of his coffin. Many younger viewers will know this best from Coppola’s Dracula, but he too borrowed it from the 1922 Nosferatu. I liked the image of the vampire sleeping in the linen closet. These are small things, and definitely not enough to save the film.

My thoughts on the 1991 revival.

For more Film reviews, click here.

Related posts:

  1. Dark Shadows – The Revival
  2. Near Dark – The Hurt Coffin
  3. Stake Land – Vampire Zombie Scramble
  4. The Way of Shadows
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Movies
Tagged as: Angelique, Barnabas Collins, Dark Shadows, EvaGreen, Johnny Depp, Max Schreck, Michelle Pfeiffer, Movie, reviews, Tim Burton, Vampire, vampires

On Stranger Tides

Jun06

Title: Pirates of the Caribbean IV: On Stranger Tides

Director/Stars: Johnny Depp (Actor), Ian McShane (Actor), Rob Marshall (Director)

Genre: Pirate Fantasy

Read: May 28, 2011

Summary: Better than 2 or 3.

ANY CHARACTER HERE

This post isn’t so much a review of the 4th Pirates installment, but an little digression on its amusing relationship to one of my favorite books. Still, I’ll mention a few things about the film:

On Stranger Tides is a major improvement over Pirates 2 and 3 (blech). It feels more like a prequel to the first film (although technically it’s a straight sequel). Gone are Orlando and Knightly, and the plot focuses mostly on Jack Sparrow and some of the other baddies like Barbarossa and the new Blackbeard (played by the always likable Ian McShane). The plot is a bit of a retrenchment, involving a hectic quest for the Fountain of Youth. It’s more contained, more classically swashbuckled, with a welcome elimination of giant krakens, the afterlife, pirate councils, and ludicrous giant whirlpool ship battles. As such, if you can ignore the gapping plot holes and the merely token setup, it’s much more satisfying and fun to watch. It rates fairly close to the original, which is actually a pretty damn good movie — albiet a guilty pleasure for sure. The CGI is also much reduced. Not that it isn’t in nearly every frame, but it’s more contained and less bombastic. Structurally the elimination of the Orlando/Knightly thing also simplifies the whole character focus.

Now, on to the reason I’m writing this post. When I first saw the preview a year or so ago I was struct by the subtitle (On Stranger Tides) and the fact that the plot involved Blackbeard and the Fountain of Youth. I was instantly reminded of one of my three favorite Tim Powers novels, On Stranger Tides, about the same. Now This is a 1987 novel, and I read it in the 90s. But Powers is one of my favorite authors, and probably one of the biggest influences on my own writing (at least my first novel, The Darkening Dream). He blends history, the occult, and fantasy in an artful and seamless way. Anyone who hasn’t read him must immediately buy and read The Anubis Gates, one of my all time favorite novels. The original novel (On Stranger Tides) is a creepy and heavily researched story about Blackbeard’s maniacal search for immortality. It’s pretty brilliant and quintessential Powers. Much darker and scarier than this film.

Pirates IV is well… a Pirates of the Caribbean movie that involves Blackbeard and the Fountain of Youth. That’s about as far as it goes. Unless I missed something, the only other elements borrowed from the novel are a vague mention of zombies and the fact that when we meet Blackbeard his beard has smoldering flames hidden inside. This is a well documented feature of the man, as he claimed to be a priest of the voodoo god Baron Samedi whose magical totem is smoldering flame. This famous engraving shows the details. In any case the book is really cool and much more interesting than the film.

What’s interesting here is that Disney put “suggested by the novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers” in the credits and felt it needed to option the novel just to include the two basic elements of Blackbeard and the Fountain. Nothing else.

Hollywood.

Although I’m glad that Mr. Powers got at least some kind of payday as a result — he deserves it.

By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Books, Movies
Tagged as: Blackbeard, Film Review, Fountain of Youth, Ian McShane, Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp, Movie Review, On Stranger Tides, Pirates of The Caribbean, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Rob Marshall, Tim Powers
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