Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton’s latest collaboration, “Dark Shadows,” once again has the actor donning some white powder makeup, but this time around, their work isn’t charming the critics as much as previous films. The critics agree that Depp is in his usual top form and Burton’s visuals still demand attention, but some issues with the script keep “Dark Shadows” from being all it can be.
Check out what the critics are saying about Dark Shadows : ”As a child, Barnabas and his wealthy family sailed from England in 1750 and founded the fishing village of Collinsport in coastal Maine. They spent 15 years building the grand Collinwood Manor, where a maid named Angelique (Eva Green) loved Barnabas passionately, but he never returned her affections. Because she felt scorned — and happened to be a witch — she turned him into a vampire, chained him up and stuck him in a coffin in the ground. Nearly 200 years later, a construction crew unearths him and sets him free.” — Christy Lemire, Associated Press
“Depp’s performance is more than just funny — it’s ghoulishly endearing. He caresses each line with great care, as if it were a piece of candy he’s unwrapping, and he gives Barnabas, in his very ‘demonic’ intensity, a quality of almost elfin innocence that recalls the characters Depp has most memorably played for Burton: Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Willy Wonka. But ‘Dark Shadows,’ entertaining as it is, is a milder echo of those earlier collaborations.” — Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly.
The story begins in the 1700s, when the Collins family leaves Liverpool for the New World and settles in Maine, where Joshua Collins builds a thriving business, establishes a seaport town, and constructs a majestic family mansion. But one of the household servants (Green) turns out to be a witch, and when Barnabas (Depp) shuns her in favor of another woman, she unleashes a curse on the Collins clan and turns the young playboy into a vampire who is then buried alive. The story picks up two hundred years later—in 1972, as Barnabas rises from his grave and tries to restore his family’s tarnished glory.
In the year 1752, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas has the world at his feet—or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy…until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard. A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets.
If you’re hoping for big, Addams Family-style laughs, however, you may come away disappointed. There isn’t much substance here, and once you absorb the tone of the film and acquaint yourself with its colorful characters, the movie has no big surprises in store. I was satisfied to watch Depp and sexy Eva Green bare their fangs, so to speak, and I enjoyed Helena Bonham Carter’s scenes as a slightly unhinged psychiatrist-in-residence, even if other cast members like Chloë Grace Moretz and Jackie Earle Haley have little to do. Michelle Pfeiffer is reduced to playing straight-man, as the family matriarch, but she does it well. And, of course, it’s nice to see 89-year-old Christopher Lee in his one scene as an old sea salt.
In voice-over, Barnabas economically details the Collins family history in once-upon-a-time fashion, from its rise to its fall and including some disastrous lord-of-the-manor grappling with a maid, Angelique (the French actress Eva Green, frisky, funny and excellent), who paws at Barnabas’s body while Josette (Bella Heathcote, a typical Burton Kewpie doll and a recent Australian import) runs off with his heart. Three’s a crowd and Angelique is a witch, so after a little boil, toil and trouble, she casts a spell that leaves Josette dead and Barnabas bereft, fanged and weeping sanguineous tears. In typical horror fashion, a mob descends on him, leading to his timeout in a deep grave until he’s disinterred in the 1970s, whereupon Mr. Burton cues the Carpenters and happily cuts loose.
Barnabas’s liberation does the same for Mr. Depp’s performance, and it’s delightful to watch how the actor handles the vampire’s readjustment to the world of the living, which, after he has thrown back some invigorating human Slurpees and faced down a “demon” (a car), he does with both lofty entitlement and abject bewilderment. Barnabas has the good looks of a vampire lover, but the character’s wide-eyed, somewhat baffled manner, in consort with his mysterious powers, means he mostly comes across like a visitor from another planet, more E. T. than Christopher Lee. Later, hiding from the sun under dark glasses, a fedora and an umbrella — Stoker’s creation moves around in daylight, too, so this isn’t as revisionist as it may seem — Barnabas also suggests the later-life Michael Jackson.
“Moulin Rouge” is a vivid assault on the senses. From the opening credits to the final scene, the movie’s breathtaking costumes and vibrant production numbers invade your mind and fill your eyes with luscious, sensuous treats. The mix of 19th century Paris and its bohemian underground, over-the-top style and decadence, with music from the late 20th century, creates a film that slides into a category beyond extravagant. This movie takes musicals to a level never before experienced, and which may never be equaled in its exaggerated style. This visually stunning film blends elements that normally would clash, and does it with such panache it’s almost painful to watch in its beauty.
This is a wonderful tale about love and kindness, but also about rejection and estrangement. It shows the limits of people’s tolerance for what is different from them and how strangers, those who stray from the norm, commonly named ‘misfits’, awake mockery or fear from a society which will use them and ultimately reject them, thus breaking their innocence and goodness. Though a harsh satire of people’s vices, such as deceit, gossip, jealousy, hypocrisy, as well as a tragic witness to the pain and frustration linked to being unable to be accepted as one is by others, the tone is still infused with an ever constant sweetness, gentleness and innocence.
“This film dates to the 1930s, when it was thought the black man has no culture and spends his time laughing at everything,” philosopher Jean-Jacques Delfour said after reviewing the film of 
Ever since the Blair Witch Project debuted back in 1999, found-footage films have been a major source of income for movie studios due to an extremely low budgets and remarkably high returns. For example, Paranormal Activity 2 cost $3 million to make and raked in $177 million worldwide. While larger productions may make a significantly higher net-income for a studio (Transformers: Dark of the Moon), they also carry a greater risk of financial failure (Green Lantern). As a result, low cost found-footage productions, with unknown actors, small crews, and low production values are a no-brainer for movie executives.
