Oh, good grief. Johnny Depp is Johnny Depping all over another movie.
Yes, he and Tim Burton, the conjoined twins of whimsy and twirly mustaches, have made yet another thing about cartoon characters coming to life and bounding around a movie making smirky faces and doing Boing-Boing! things with sunken eyeballs.
Terrific.
Oh, wait, but maybe perhaps, I’m smiling a little at this goofball remake or shit-take trailer, I dunno, of Dark Shadows. No, that just can’t be. Face! Control yourself! There’s just so much camp and filler here. Urgh! You will not win me over with some sort of nebulous charm and well placed eyebrow raises. Sigh. Okay, fine, I’m excited to see Chloe Moretz, who is playing the Wednesday Adams persona in this vampire schlock instead of the haunting vampire she played in the excellent Let Me In. Pity that. And look there’s a Michelle Pfeiffer sighting. Well, bully that! We have always loved Michelle Pfeiffer (Cool Rider forevah, y’all.)
Anyway, back to the grimacy stuff. There’s Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Burton’s Goth dressed lady-bird! And a ridiculous titties joke! Ooof, which is kind of uncomfortable, because didn’t we all kind of think Johnny Depp was a bit of an asexual being kind of like Shaggy from Scooby Doo? Or like some aging porcelain doll covered in greasy hair and skull tattoos? So there’s that. And to round out this down-the-rabbit-hole tale, it’s set in the funky, groovy 1970’s, — and sadly I found a few of the jokes cute — Tim Burton has infiltrated my mind, which was his plan all along. I’m possessed.
Could this whole thing have worked as an indie film without the makeup and more, “Odd guy lands with this family and carries them along in his nutty antics, but really they love him and decide to embrace all his strangeness, because it brings them all closer together?” Sure! This is a movie that would’ve been made starring Steve Carell, Jason Segel, or Ed Helms, or all three! Instead we have this retread with Depp who probably wears a full face of paint to the Shop & Save.
So good for Burton and Depp. We’re probably doomed, and now they’ll think it’s a good idea to remake The Exorcist with Depp as the Linda Blair character.
