Synopsis: A fashion designer suffers from a mysterious illness that confounds her doctors and frustrates her husband – until help arrives in the form of a Filipino nanny who uses traditional folk healing to reveal a horrifying truth. Stars: Eva Green, Mark Strong, Chai Fonacier, Billie Gadsdon Director: Lorcan Finnegan Rated: NR Running Length: 96 minutes TMMM Score: (7/10) Review: A lament I’ve plunked out here quite often is the downfall of the mid-range thrillers that were so easy to churn out in the late ‘80s through the mid-2000s. Produced on a modest budget with dependable actors, these were popcorn-chomping date night fare that was good for a weekend or two in theaters before heating up the video store shelves months later. With the advent of streaming services and more franchise-based entertainment, these one-shot efforts were pushed to the side when studios focused all their time and money on making their blockbusters break the bank. It’s a bummer because we’ve seen in recent years filmmakers and screenwriters that know their damsel in distress from their woman fights back scenario and their nightmare stalkers from their killer nannies.
The new Irish-Filipino psychological thriller Nocebo is just that kind of easy-to-digest thriller that you can imagine would play as well in 1997, starring Kim Basinger as it does in 2022 with Eva Green (Cracks) in the lead. Directed by Lorcan Finnegan (Vivarium) from a script by Garret Shanley, it’s solid entertainment that may have shocks up its sleeve but has more on its mind than cheap tricks and sordid plot details. Nocebo has a rather intriguing thread to follow along with, and it rewards those who stick close and will keep its secrets until the end.
Children’s fashion designer Christine (Green) has a good thing going with a busy life in Ireland. Her home is desirable, her husband Felix (Mark Strong, The Imitation Game) is successful in his own business, and her daughter Roberta “Bobs” (Billie Gadson, Cruella) is at that pre-adolescent phase where she’s coming into her own. On the eve of her latest launch at a tony shopping center, a mysterious phone call brings terrible news that we won’t know the full details until later. At the same time, a ghostly mutt appears riddled with ticks in the pristine shop, and one winds up burrowing into Christine’s neck. It’s the start of months of debilitating sickness and night terrors for Christine, leaving her incapacitated and unable to work.
When she does decide to muster all her strength and rise above the illness her doctors can’t pinpoint, she finds that she still doesn’t yet have the stamina. A knock on the door reveals Diana (Chai Fonacier), sent from the agency at Christine’s request (she can’t remember calling, but…her memory has been spotty), who quickly takes control of the household and Christine’s well-being. Tossing out the mountain of medications prescribed by her doctors in favor of remedies she’s brought from her homeland, Diana can help Christine into health. Her husband isn’t convinced Diana is the saint she wants them to think she is, and the more they rely on her, the stronger her influence becomes.
Finnegan and Shanley expertly keep Diana’s secrets hidden just out of sight for much of Nocebo’s swift running time, almost until the final scene when all is revealed. It’s a satisfying response to the questions we’ve been jotting down throughout. Helping to sell it is the terrific performance of Fonacier as a maybe villain with her side of the story to tell before the night is through. It may become apparent what’s happening and why early on. Still, try to keep the advanced puzzler in your mind at bay and enjoy how it all develops. I promise there’s something interesting happening that has some decent stakes for everyone involved. When you’re working with a small cast like this, and they are giving it their dazzling all (Green, as usual, approaches Christine in an atypical fashion), it’s exciting to witness.
Synopsis: A young elephant, whose oversized ears enable him to fly, helps save a struggling circus, but when the circus plans a new venture, Dumbo and his friends discover dark secrets beneath its shiny veneer.
Stars: Colin Farrell, Nico Parker, Finley Hobbins, Danny DeVito, Michael Keaton, Eva Green, Alan Arkin
Review: As the screening date for the live-action remake of Disney’s Dumbo was arriving I realized I hadn’t seen the original in probably two decades. Though it is classic Disney, 1941’s Dumbo is just not one that has ever made it on my rotation when it comes to revisiting the old classics. Plus, I still think I have traumatic memories of Dumbo’s Circus on the Disney Channel back in the day. So I decided to fire up the 64-minute chestnut and there were a few things that really stood out for me. One was the simplicity in the storytelling and animation – this is why movies becomes timeless because they are handled with a delicate touch that helps them transcend the years. The other thing was, slightly spoiler-y, but the dang elephant doesn’t even fly until the last five or six minutes of the movie. You remembered it differently, too, right?
Now seeing that Dumbo isn’t one of my all-time favorites I don’t have the same precious feel toward it that I would have with, say, Cinderella, The Sword in the Stone, Pinocchio, or Sleeping Beauty. So I was less up-in-arms with Disney continuing their trend of turning their animated classics into live-action films…but more concerned with the guys they hired to do it. First up was screenwriter Ehren Kruger, best known for Scream 3 and a handful of the Transformers movies. What about his credits made it seem like he’d be the best choice to tackle the tale of a baby elephant at first ostracized for his large ears before being embraced when those same ears allow him to take wing? Second potential problem was the one time can’t-miss director Tim Burton, who hasn’t had a sizable hit for years and already biffed a major Disney adaptation with his brain-numbing bloated expansion of Alice in Wonderland.
Then the first teaser appeared and it seemed like things may be going in the right direction. Showing just enough of those baby blue elephant eyes against the strains of the melancholy Oscar-nominated song Baby Mine hit audiences with the right dose nostalgia and the tide seemed to shift from uncertainty to curiosity as to how Burton would bring Dumbo and his circus adventures to life. Maybe Burton would go back to the type of fantastical creations that became his calling card in his early films before he fell into relying on a never-ending rampage of CGI world he’s been filming in for the last two decades.
Sadly, Kruger (Transformers: Age of Extinction) and Burton (Big Eyes, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Frankenweenie, Dark Shadows) have not only run off with the circus in Dumbo but they’ve taken most everything you liked about the original with them. What they’ve given audiences (family audiences, no less) is a tale that’s too dark, scary, and frankly, boring. It also represents yet another failure by the studio to make any kind of case that these live-action remakes are somehow improving upon their source material. In fact, going all the way back to the Glenn Close led 101 Dalmatians, Disney has yet to totally perfect this formula…though 2015 lavish Cinderella came quite close. And it’s another Burton fiasco where an entire world is created on a soundstage rather than use the types of old-school Hollywood movie-making that used to set Burton apart from his peers. It’s all make-believe but there is no whimsy or fantasy to anything.
It’s 1919 and the Medici Bros. traveling circus has seen better days. Led by Max Medici (Danny DeVito, The Lorax), the performers are weary of another season traveling on a shoestring budget yet they are happy to see trick riding sharp shooter Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell, Saving Mr. Banks) back from the war. Holt returns to his two precocious children (Nico Parker & Finley Hobbins) to be a father figure to them after the tragic death of their mother while he was overseas. Though he lost an arm in battle, Holt is eager to engage in his old act…if Max hadn’t sold his horses and most of his possessions already. Max suggests Holt work with the elephants, and it just so happens a new one has arrived and is due to give birth any day. When the baby arrives he causes an uproar with his oversize ears…as if any of these circus clowns and carnies don’t also have faces/features only a mother could love.
How the baby elephant gets his name is one of the few clever bits Burton brings forth but too soon the kids have figured out Dumbo seems to take specific delight in flight whenever a feather is in his presence and we’re off on a very different movie. In the original film Dumbo doesn’t learn to fly until the final moments, in the 2019 version he’s soaring around the circus tent before the movie is ¼ finished. That leaves 75% of the movie for Kruger and Burton to expand Dumbo’s world and introduce new characters and, in some good news, excise those horribly racist crows.
Michael Keaton (RoboCop) positively chews his way through every green screen Burton has erected as V. A. Vandevere, the scheming sovereign of Dreamland, a permanent circus that bears a striking resemblance to Walt Disney World with it’s multiple themed lands, wildlife on display, and cleverly concocted thrill rides. His star attraction is aerialist Colette Marchant (Eva Green, Cracks) and after seeing Dumbo in the local papers Vandevere sets his sights on purchasing Medici’s circus and establishing an act between Colette and Dumbo that will pack the audiences in. When Max, Holt, and the kids find out Vandevere has set them up only to gain access to Dumbo, it’s up to them to save the elephant and expose Vandevere for his greedy selfishness.
This plot is directly from any number of family films (many released by Disney) so it offers little in the way of surprise or fulfillment. It’s hard to believe Disney executives green lit something so pedestrian, actually. Considering this is the studio that also has live-action remakes of Aladdin and The Lion King still coming in 2019…I’m worried more than ever about how those films will turn out. As for Dumbo, this is mostly disappointing because there was potential here to make something with more appeal and charm.
Aside from the CGI elephant, there’s a seriously lack of personality anywhere to be found in the movie. DeVito seems like someone wound him up with a coffee IV and let him go while Farrell (who looks more handsome in clown make-up than he has any right to) is almost completely disengaged with the action. It doesn’t help the two tykes playing his kids are not only struggling to hide their British accents, they also are incapable of pulling empathy from an audience with their pallid line readings. Green, as always, feels like she wants to do something wild with her character but is operating within a framework that doesn’t support that. There’s no depth to anyone here, least of all in their choices or actions which are wholly dictated by the screenplay not by any real passion.
If you’re looking for any hold-over moments for the original, you’ll be disappointed to know that most of the music has been replaced by Danny Elfman’s same-sounding score. There are hints at the original tunes but maybe the biggest sleight of all is the beautiful lullaby Baby Mine delivered by a ukulele strumming carnival worker as a campfire dirge to no one in particular. Admittedly, the Pink Elephants on Parade sequence has made the transition into the remake largely intact, this time as part of an impressively trippy Dreamland circus act. When all else fails, there’s Dumbo who will likely charm the pants off you and nearly made me forget how crummy the rest of Burton’s film is.
Synopsis: From Disney and visionary director Tim Burton, the all-new grand live-action adventure expands on the beloved classic story where differences are celebrated, family is cherished and dreams take flight.
Release Date: March 29, 2019
Thoughts: I must say when I heard Disney was making a live-action version of their classic 1941 animated film Dumbo to be directed by Tim Burton I was less than thrilled. Dumbo is a family favorite and one that seemed unlikely to lend itself to the kind of success other adaptations like Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and The Jungle Book enjoyed. Even more, was the dark whimsy of Burton (Dark Shadows) really the right choice to take this simple and lovely tale to the big screen? After watching this first look at the 2019 release, I’m relaxing into the notion that this marriage of Burton’s style and Disney’s chestnut might not be so strange after all. It looks downright charming. Starring Colin Farrell (Saving Mr. Banks), Michael Keaton (Spider Man: Homecoming), Danny DeVito (Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax), Eva Green (Cracks) and a big-eyed CGI elephant who is destined to fly to great heights, this just jumped up a few notches on my radar.
Synopsis: When Jacob discovers clues to a mystery that spans different worlds and times, he finds Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. But the mystery and danger deepen as he gets to know the residents and learns about their special powers.
Stars: Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Ella Purnell, Samuel L. Jackson, Allison Janney, Kim Dickens, Judi Dench, Terence Stamp, Chris O’Dowd
Review: For some time now, I’ve been looking for director Tim Burton. Not that he was lost in any back-of-the-milk-carton sort of way but the filmmaker that kicked off his career with supremely surreal oddities and favored practical (read: expensive) sets gradually morphed into a director that saw the world only in CGI possibilities. His movies became eyesores, with audiences not only straining to keep their eyes focused but their minds too.
Last represented in cinemas with 2014’s disappointingly stale Big Eyes, Burton has finally found a project that feels like a throwback to his early work with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Adapted from the novel by Ransom Riggs, when it was announced that Burton had signed on to direct I remember thinking what a perfect marriage this was. The novel was a curious eccentricity in and of itself, inspired by old-time pictures of unexplained human phenomena Riggs had collected through the years and then fashioned a story around. Looking at these pictures now, they seem like snaps Burton himself art-directed.
Though Jane Goldman (X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Woman in Black) made some alterations in her screenplay (namely swapping the ‘peculiarities’ of two children), it arrives on screen mostly the way Riggs originally laid it out. Young Jacob (Asa Butterfield, Hugo) travels to Wales to learn more about his grandfather (Terence Stamp) who died under mysterious circumstances. Looking for the orphanage featured prominently in his grandfather’s cautionary bedtime stories, Jacob finds himself traveling through time and meeting up with Miss Peregrine (Eva Green, reteaming with her Dark Shadows director) and her charges.
The headmistress and children all have special talents that attract the attention of other power hungry peculiars with a fondness for extracting and consuming the eyes of their prey. While Jacob is learning more about the life his grandfather never explained to him and becoming enamored with a girl that’s literally light as air (Ella Purnell, Maleficent), peril is in store as a predatory leader (Samuel L. Jackson, The Hateful Eight) arrives with a hefty appetite. It all culminates in an effects heavy third act that disappointingly jumps through time and space with little regard for plot coherence.
Were it not for this dreary misstep, Miss Peregrine might be filed higher up in the Burton canon seeing that the rest of the film is chock full of unexpected flights of fancy. Green seems to be having a ball and not just because she’s decked out in some typically impressive Colleen Atwood (Into the Woods) costumes. Her body movements and line delivery are razor sharp without ever careening into camp territory. Butterfield makes for an impressive hero and the various children create personalities that go beyond their idiosyncrasies. I would have preferred someone other than Jackson as the main heavy as he doesn’t quite get the tone everyone else is going for and Chris O’Dowd (The Sapphires) is barely there as Jacob’s bird watching father. I get the impression Judi Dench (Skyfall) and Allison Janney (The Way Way Back) signed up as a personal favor, neither have much to do or work with which is saying something for the two cracker-jack scene stealers.
Like the best of Burton’s oeuvre, it scores the most points by embracing the peculiar and like the worst it stumbles when it becomes less about the performances and more about the special effects. Still, aside from Burton’s feature length remake of his short film Frankenweenie, it’s an improvement over much of his output over the past decade.
Synopsis: When Jacob discovers clues to a mystery that spans different worlds and times, he finds Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.
Release Date: September 30, 2016
Thoughts: Usually when you see a preview of an upcoming Tim Burton film you have to squint hard to see the calling cards of the director that gave us more than a few memorable movie moments. Now favoring creating CGI worlds instead of practical sets (I get it, it’s less expensive…and less impressive), the director comes back from the disappointing drama of Big Eyeswith this adaptation of the novel by Ransom Riggs. Re-teaming with Eva Green, his Dark Shadows leading lady, Burton seems like the perfect fit for this piece and I was certainly enticed to see more after this long-ish tease. Still six months from theaters, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children could be a fine return to form for Burton if he resists going overboard on the CGI landscapes.
Synopsis: In 1988, a teenage girl’s life is thrown into chaos when her mother disappears.
Release Date: September 25, 2014
Thoughts: Star Shailene Woodley has been on a roll ever since making an impressive bid for stardom opposite George Clooney in The Descendants. In 2014 alone she’s been an action star (in the otherwise forgettable Divergent), broke YA hearts (as a cancer teen in The Fault in Our Stars) and now takes on another dramatic role in Gregg Araki’s coming of age tale White Bird in a Blizzard. With Araki’s history of putting the squeaky clean youth of Hollywood through his adult blender, expect Woodley to mine new ground and bare all (literally) as a teen affected by the disappearance of her unbalanced mother (Eva Green, Cracks) in the late 80s.
Synopsis: The town’s most hard-boiled citizens cross paths with some of its more reviled inhabitants.
Release Date: August 24, 2014
Thoughts: Not exactly striking while the iron was hot, this sequel to 2005’s technically sound but pretty darn moody Sin City finally makes it to the big screen after almost a decade of false starts and other production delays. Again directed by Robert Rodriguez and graphic novelist Frank Miller (also at the pen for 300 and 300: Rise of an Empire) this looks to have the same dark flash as its predecessor while introducing a new roster of shady characters like Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Don Jon), Eva Green (Cracks, Dark Shadows), and Josh Brolin (Oldboy, Labor Day) along with returning stars Bruce Willis (Color of Night), Mickey Rourke (Iron Man 2), and Jessica Alba. The first film broke new ground with its visuals…but it’s 10 years later and what was one revolutionary is now standard. What more does this film have to offer…and will it be too little, too late?
Synopsis: The Greek general Themistocles battles an invading army of Persians under the mortal-turned-god, Xerxes.
Release Date: March 7, 2014
Thoughts: It’s hard to believe, but this sequel is arriving a full 7 years after the original surprise blockbuster was released. I found the first film a hyper-surreal thrill ride filled with ample amounts of blood and bared flesh and in the years since the movie has inspired countless inferior knockoffs and quite a few new ab workouts for those wanting to get into Spartan shape. Director Zack Snyder was busy with Man of Steel so the directing duties went to Noam Murro…a relatively green director helming only his second feature film. Even with Snyder staying on as producer and screenwriter, it remains to be seen if the unproven Murro can really sail this ship. Bolstered by some interesting female leads in the form of Eva Green (Cracks, Dark Shadows) and Lena Headey (The Purge), this sequel is highly anticipated and should be a nice blockbuster of 2014.
The James Bond franchise is celebrating its 50th birthday this year and with the release of Skyfall I wanted to take a look back at the 22 (23 if you count the rogue Never Say Never Again, 24 if you count the 1967 spoof of Casino Royale) films that have come before it. So sit back, grab your shaken-not-stirred martini and follow me on a trip down Bond memory lane.
The Facts:
Synopsis: In his first mission, James Bond must stop Le Chiffre, a banker to the world’s terrorist organizations, from winning a high-stakes poker tournament at Casino Royale in Montenegro.
Stars: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Wright
Director: Martin Campbell
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 144 minutes
TMMM Score: (9/10)
Review:
After Die Another Day, the Bond series would go through another long hibernation until its producers and studio settled a few legal issues that had been slow burning for several years. When the 21st James Bond film was ready to move into production it was time for a new actor to take on the role of 007 – after a lot of rumor and speculation it was blonde, blue-eyed Brit Craig that won the role. At first, hardcore fans were agog that their dark horse agent created by Ian Fleming would now be sporting a new look…but most changed their tune when Casino Royale was released in the fall of 2006.
Marking the first time the franchise had gone back to an original Fleming full source novel since Moonraker, Casino Royale had been given the film treatment a few times before…in a television movie and a spoof film from the late 60’s. This Casino Royale, however, would adhere more closely to the original novel and act not only as an introduction to the Bond of Craig but also as a way for the series to get a fresh start.
From the opening moments we can tell that this will not be your typical Bond film. Leaving out the traditional gun barrel opening was risky but winds up fitting in perfectly to the prologue’s origin story aspirations. This pre-credit sequence is raw knuckle but restrained energy filmed in black and white that leads to an explosion of color during Daniel Kleinman’s gorgeous animated credit sequence. Paired with Chris Cornell’s rock theme song, it’s clear that this is not your granddad’s James Bond.
The longest Bond film to date, Casino Royale is a white hot film that keeps the grand villains trying to take over the world at bay and instead focuses on a more personal and one on one approach as Bond matches wits and poker hands with evil banker Le Chiffre (Mikkelsen) at the titular casino. There’s about an hour of lead up until the games begin and it’s here we see that Bond is a loose cannon that has just achieved his double O status. Operating as a shoot first and ask questions later sort of agent, Bond’s first scene after the strong opening is a breathless chase over rooftops, construction cranes, and through an embassy before he finally gets what he’s after.
Craig’s brute force physicality is exactly what Bond has needed for quite some time. The previous actors playing the role all came across as intelligent agents but I never fully bought into the fact they could knock someone’s lights out with a single punch. In the guise of Craig, Bond is an agent not to be messed with lest you want to pick your teeth up off the ground.
Appearing late in the game is Vesper Lynd (Green) who represents the financial institution bankrolling Bond’s admittance to the high stakes poker game that occupies a good portion of the second act. From the moment she plops down and proclaims “I’m the money.” both Bond and the audiences know that we’ve met a woman that might just be his equal. It helps that Green is excellently cagey in her portrayal of Lynd…we’ve seen enough Bond films to know that he’s been double crossed before…so how much can we trust her?
Craig and Green’s screen chemistry goes on for days and could fuel a small island – both actors really understand the roles they are playing and how they relate to each other. The complexities are great and it’s a credit to both that you don’t see them working as hard as we come to realize they are. Green is so perfect…I’d be hard pressed to offer up a better Bond girl.
Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre cries blood and has a torture method sure to make any male viewer wince…Craig is particularly good in these torture scenes in conveying real pain and conflict. The way the film is structured it’s never clear if Le Chiffre is the main villain or the shadow for someone behind the scenes…there’s a few twists to be had but sometimes the stakes don’t feel as high as they could be.
Dench is back as M and while chronologically it doesn’t make sense that she’s present, I can’t imagine the role without her. With each film the writers are smart to beef up her contribution and she maximizes every zinger for all its worth.
The last Bond film to be this long was On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and like that film Casino Royale has a deeper story to tell. It’s refreshing that the producers and director Campbell (returning after GoldenEye) take the time to let the film have its moments that don’t involve big chases and fiery explosions. It doesn’t feel as long as it is and all production values work in harmony to provide great entertainment for longtime Bond fans or those that are new to the world of 007.
Synopsis: An imprisoned vampire, Barnabas Collins, is set free and returns to his ancestral home, where his dysfunctional descendants are in need of his protection.
Stars: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Helena Bonham-Carter, Bella Heathcoate, Chloë Grace Moretz
Director: Tim Burton
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 113 minutes
TMMM Score: (6/10)
Review: Raise your hand if you are tired of the continued collaboration of director Burton and star Depp. Ok, now raise your other hand if you are also exhausted with Burton including his wife Bonham-Carter in his movies come hell or high water. Now that all of our hands are up do the hokey pokey and shake it all about because you probably aren’t the ideal audience for this film…and that’s what it’s all about.
In all fairness, the film adaptation of gothic 70’s soap opera Dark Shadows isn’t a total miss. It’s actually better than you think it’s going to be if you plunk your cash down with the understanding that the movie still has a small screen feeling at heart. Yes, the sets, costumes and performances are larger than life but it is, at heart, an adaptation of a soap opera. Go into it thinking otherwise and you are bound to be let down. I found it to be a mostly enjoyable and well designed romp that sees a welcome return to form for its director.
Lately, I’ve lamented the fact that Burton has been relying more and more on green screen to create his environments rather than spend the money to create the extravagant sets of his earlier work. Imaginative designs in Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Batman (to name just a few) gave way to largely CGI worlds of Sweeney Todd and the dreadful Alice in Wonderland. While not totally back to the “old school” ways there are more than enough impressive set pieces to help you remember why Burton was hailed as such an innovator of his time. Perhaps what is on display here is Burton testing the waters again for that kind of large scale design that he shoots so well.
With every Burton movie one must ask: “And what is Johnny Depp playing?” Here, Depp dons the fangs of Barnabas Collins who rises from the undead to find himself in a world he is unfamiliar with. You see, centuries ago he was cursed by a witch and buried only to be unearthed by a back hoe building a chain restaurant (one of the many clever sight gags the picture employs). His arrival at his family estate and subsequent reentry into 1972 society is pretty much all you need to know about the plot. I’m not going to be one of those lazy reviewers that spends 2/3 of my review detailing every nook and cranny of plot so you’ll have to see the movie to discover a few more wrinkles to the script written by Seth Graheme-Smith (who also wrote Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the Burton-produced movie version of which comes out later this summer).
Adding support to (and stealing the show from) Depp are two ladies that are a welcome presence onscreen. First up is Pfeiffer, reuniting with Burton after creating the definitive Catwoman in Batman Returns (sorry Anne Hathaway…you’re not even close). Looking regal and perfectly cast as the matriarch of the Collins clan, Pfeiffer delivers the material with just the right amount of cheekiness so that we know she means what she says…but also knows what kind of movie she’s in. Costumer Colleen Atwood decks her out in grand costumes fit for a respectable disco queen and Burton films her with style.
Villainess Green is the one to watch here as she gleefully goes toe-to-toe (or, toothy grin to fangy scowl, as it were) with Depp. Motivated by a deep obsession with Barnabas, she plays infatuated in the same vein as scorned woman…so you’re never quite sure what she’ll do next. She mostly hides her French accent though her struggle to stay in the American creates a nice weirdness that works with the overall effect. I especially liked as sthe cracks show in her façade (literally) as the finale nears.
On the tech side, the aforementioned costumes from Atwood are near perfection as usual as is the production design by Rick Heinrichs. The score by Danny Elfman has some classic Elfman touches but it’s nice to hear him going beyond his usual fare and focusing on a more robust orchestral sound. The soundtrack is filled with some carefully selected classic 70’s tracks…it’s not Tarantino-clever choices but they all fit with the feel of the picture.
Now to the bad, or bland shadows of the film. Bonham-Carter appears here in a fat suit (at least I hope it was a fat suit), a orange wig from the Carrot Top chic collection, my mom’s sunglasses, and an accent (and character) without purpose. She’s so shoe horned into the picture and her arc so pointless that it appears Burton just asked her to show up and improv her part. It’s not all her fault…but let her shoulder the blame because she does her fair share of unnecessary scene hogging. A secondary storyline, that is all but abandoned involves Heathcoate as a “woman with a secret” that shows up at Collinwood Manor just about the time Barnabas returns. Moretz has a few nice moments but her line delivery gets old real fast. All three of these plotlines are extraneous but if you come at it from the soap opera “serial” nature they may be excused more easily.
Most will look at Dark Shadows as a failure but I found it to be a nice entry in the Depp/Burton canon. It’s leagues better than Alice in Wonderland and was more interesting visually than Sweeney Todd. I’m not sure summer was the right time to release it, it may have gone down easier with a late summer or early fall bow. The chill in the air would have made the movie a nice choice for a crisp fall day.
