Tim Burton: "Hello Mr. Executive, I have a new idea for a movie". Warner Bros Executive: "That's great Tim, what's the pitch?" Tim Burton: "Well I'm going to put lots of make-up on Johnny Depp and film it again". Warner Bros Executive: "Here's $150m".

Tim Burton needs to retire

It started off strong as a surprisingly well done horror-type piece with a little bit of quirk, but then, you were able to see things coming a mile away, and were treated to some pretty bad dialogue, and the villain just became too over the top. I still enjoyed it, but it really could've been much more.

Excellent performance from Johnny Depp(really, does he ever do a bad job?) in which he was quite funny. The rest of the cast was adequate. At times, this movie could have been a lot more fun, but it is not that bad either.

Another whimsical dark comedy by Tim Burton. Depp is again heavily made up in typical androgynous goth fashion. Depp turns in a decent performance as Collins. However too much of this film has a lacquered on CGI veneer to disguise its mediocrity rather than focusing on the strange melodramatic world of Dark Shadows. Burton's vision is incapable of forming the same suspenseful and weird atmosphere as the original to do it justice. It's a costly loud remake with little substance.

With a trailer that gave me no hope for anything good, I was utterly surprised by the utterly amazing prologue of the movie. . . . and then boom. . . all down hill from there. the movie feels more like the longest music video ever then anything else, relying on little sketches to take the movie from here to there.

So campy, it's actually good.

http://i.imgur.com/sJ2mE.png

The high point of this movie was suddenly seeing Christopher Lee all well. The introduction is too carelessly fast. The viewer isn't given time to care for the lives of most of the main characters. It showed some promise here and there. Unfortunately, the movie exchanged those opportunities for Emo Johnny Depp love scenes.

Burton is a shadow of his former self - even pointing out that his shtick is getting old got old a long time ago. Nearly all his films from the past 15 years are meaningless, over the top amalgamations of things he already did better. Tim, enough is enough. Also: Villains you make us hate are shitty villains. People don't remember the likes of Hans Gruber for being a whiny, irrational bitch. Depp gets a few laughs, but the film is a chore, despite being Burton's best in a while(!).

As with Burton's prior Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows sells garish excess at the expense of originality and verve. It's improved by Depp's finely-tuned theatrics, yet staggers along aimlessly and unconvincingly past half-drawn characters, shoddy gimmicks, and through a hit-miss comic plot line. Simply put, it wants desperately for the flavour and innovation that made such films as Edward Scissorhands and Nightmare Before Christmas such exceeding works of pop-gothicness.

Very Burtony, but on the good side of what that means. It's an entertaining silly story with interesting characters, even if most of them are underdeveloped and under utilized.

/out of 20... Casting/Acting: 20 Writing/Story/Plot: 14 Directing: 15 Cinematography/Sound: 20 Originality/Bonus: 17 The chaotic plot, genre, and score was a workable and entertaining mirror to the characters' dysfunctional lives. Completely different from Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate factory and some other Burton recents in the "unwatchable" vein.

Johnny Depp wears a lot of make-up, Chloe Grace Moretz sneers the entire movie, and no jokes are made that weren't done to death in the trailers. It doesn't work well in any capacity despite attempts at being a comedy, romance, action, fantasy, period piece.

Tim Burton joins the ranks of the greats like Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott and the Coen Brothers, as one of those good directors who keep continually making horrible movies. Nothing redeeming here except for Alice Cooper.

What can I say, its a Tim burton movie, but unlike alot of people i mean that positively, not one of his classics, but regardless its an entertaining movie to waste some time on. Given the source material, it could've been worse. It could have been a serious drama, but how many vampiric dramas do we really need? I think it was a good decision to make it comedical. sometimes a little light heartedness can go a long way.

A curate's egg of a film, with some sizable flaws mixed in with a good deal that works; the first act in particular is rough-going, but it comes to develop its own ragged rhythm, no thanks to a muddled, repetitive script. Tim Burton brings some of his old verve to the table, and assembles a game cast; Johnny Depp is solid, but Michelle Pfeiffer and (especially) Eva Green sink their teeth into their roles. Top-notch production design and special effects...but the script truly does need work.

One of the most gorgeous-looking movies of the year, but also one of the most wretchedly written. After two hundred years, a vampire digs himself out of his grave in 1972 and stumbles across his flaky descendants, but we get to watch him negotiate with fishing port owners and stupid, bland shit like that. The art direction's great, but this is almost appallingly bad. Easily Burton's worst.

If you go into this film with the expectation that it will be like the show, you will not enjoy it in the least.

1/2 of this umpteenth Burton stinker is innocuous enough as Depp's supercilious yet family-minded vampire makes 4 a good fish out of water as the film treads same trying 2 b amusing. When the film gets back 2 its only real conflict it devolves in2 the familiar mainstream mess as it attempts 2 stitch together the many 1-note characters who exist only 4 Depp 2 bounce off of & truncated ideas from what feels like a multitude of rewrites. Burton has, again, put a suit & tie on what used 2 b unusual.

one of the best shot films i have seen for a long time , burton at his best , the dark humour mixed with well acted drama makes this a must watch for me really enjoyed this film .

For every point- and harmless 'Johnny Depp in heavy make-up'-movie Tim Burton delivers the memory of what he once was - one of the most visionary directors of his time - grows fainter. But at least this one is way more entertaining than the last bunch AND it features more than enough of Eva Green's cleavage to keep the male parts of the audience fixated for two hours!

* Casting, Acting : 5 * Script : 3 * Directing, Aura : 5 * Ease of Viewing : 6 * Naked Eye : 6

Burton w coraz gorszej formie.