Warning: If you’re a fan of Tim Burton, then do not, under any circumstance, watch this movie. If you’re a fan of Johnny Depp, then I don’t think anything I write is going to stop you from watching a movie he’s in.
This movie was perhaps the biggest Burton disappointment to date. Don’t get me wrong, the signature Burton visuals are still there, and if you mute the movie and just watch the cinematography, then there’s probably a bigger chance that you will like this train wreck.
Let’s start with introducing the plot; Barnabus Collins (Johnny Depp), a young man from a prosperous British family that settled in 18th century New England, gets turned into a vampire after spurning a witch that fell in love with him. The witch, played by Eva Green, gets the town to chase him with pitchforks and bury him alive in a chained coffin. This concludes the first and last good five minutes of the movie.
Cue 200 years later, a construction team accidentally digs out Barnabus’ coffin, and he finds himself in 1972 where what is left of the Collins family is a barely functioning wreck of a home – complete with a live-in psychiatrist. Barnabus then tries to restore the family fortune while fighting the witch in this predicament.
The movie theoretically has the components to be great when it comes to the director, cast, and even the kooky plot, but it didn’t deliver. There were a couple of laughs scattered throughout, but they were mostly cheap attempts at humor, if anything. Another downside of the script is how they didn’t take advantage of the 70s setting, with the exception of a cameo from Alice Cooper and a bunch of hippies, or as Barnabus likes to call them, “nice hairy unkempt people.”
It should be said that the acting was superb considering most of the characters are flat, but the delivery was as best as it could be in this case.
Verdict: 2.5 out of 5 stars. All in all, if you wish to zone out and gaze at Johnny Depp’s face and have a couple of laughs, then this is the movie for you.
– Haya Al-Farhan
Image: IMDb.com
