Dark Shadows

Breath... Just remember to breath... I thought this movie was... Dare I say it? ... Boring.
It frustrates me because this movie had SO much talent in it, and NONE of it was being used! Before I rant about this movie, let me tell you how I was introduced to it:

After Twilight, everyone became obsest about vampires... And after a while I saw the newspaper writing about Tim Burton and his new movie Dark Shadows. They said that he wanted to try to reintroduce us to the "old cursed vampires"... Tim, you're not BRAVE enough to do it! Sorry to say it, but you're not.

I'm not gonna get into what vampires are because everyone has their own adaptations and stuff like that and so have I so if you're curious... You probably already know what they are. So yeah, I'm not getting into that.

I can explain the plot very simple: The humans act like humans and Johnny Depp does funny poses. That's the movie for ya! Intrigued?
This movie has several plots in them that doesn't really go anywhere. There's the first and main plot that Barnabas Collins is in love with a woman and of course she loves him back, but there's this other woman who loves him too and can't see them two together so she devote her entire life to tear them apart. She has some magic behind her to help her with this task and of course a hot body to go with it.
Another plot is that the family business has collapsed and of course Barnabas don't want to his family business tear apart so he restors it.
Another plot is that Barnabas wants to fit in with this new colture that he's not familiar with because he had been inprisoned in a coffin for 200 years! Why was he inprisoned? Boy, do I wonder! They do explain it in the movie but the logic behind it was not there so I missed it!
And that's the best I can give on the plot. Here's why it doesn't work:

It's chaos! So much happens yet so little happens that it's just... No! It doesn't work! It feels like three short movies were cut together that they just calles an hour and 48 minutes long movie! In the beginning you'll see Barnabas waking up as a vampire killing people, then you see him acting weird with this new things in the world because he has slept in for 200 years! And then we see him rebuild the family business and after that we see him getting seduced by a which and he falls for it, wait what?! He's a vampire and still he falls for a human seduction? ... No, sorry, but NO! And then we have the ending... which I'm NOT gonna say here. I'll save that for the end but yeah! ... It's just chaos!

What was good with this movie? ... Wait! Let me think.... Well... Johnny Depp, as much as I don't really like him.. I must agree that he's a good actor and he really lives into every role that he has. That's the only good part with this movie. I'm do frustrated because there was so much talent behind this movie and NONE of it was being used... Absolutely none of it!

When I watched Alice in Wonderland, the Tim Burton version, I said that Johnny Depp can do better. This was actually giving me satisfactory with his performans. He gave his all into this role and that was great to see... For everybody else in this movie... I felt they were just thrown away just so Johnny could shine even more. Well, OK, Eva Green gave it her all too and that was a great performance also, but still... It was such a waste of talent! Helena Bonham Carter, I love her, she has a lot of talent but... Non of it were shown in this movie. Michelle Pfeiffer, her performance in Stardust was excellent! Not so much in this movie.. Christopher Lee is also wonderful talented in everything he does and.. The screen time he gets is lesser than it was in Sleepy Hollow! Danny Elfman does the music! ... He does the music for the climax anyway! In the other part of the movie there's just constant pop songs! Waste of talent!

I also felt like this story wasn't made from its characters... The story made the characters, which made them stiff. I felt like I was watching plastic dolls moving around the sets that a recorded uninterested voice spoke for them! The characters was as dull as my wardrobe door, flat and colorless. They had backstories and actions, but no reasons for their actions. They had no personalities and to watch a doll drift around on the set... It becomes pretty boring pretty fast. This movie had no purpose. The characters had no purpose other than to be funny.. Ever tried to be funny to your friends? It never works. Those things comes naturally not when you're trying to be funny! If you have no characters you have no story! The story comes from the character NOT the other way around! No matter how much you try to do that!

Without purpose the scenes that are put together doesn't matter so why should I be invested in a thing that doesn't matter? There were so many things that just seemed they were thrown together in the last minute! The main plot which should be about Barnabas and the woman that he loves right? This movie concentrates on Barnabas and the woman who seduces him. Victoria, the woman he loves, get's SO little screen time. We see her in the beginning getting introduced to the family, we see her getting introduced to Barnabus, we see her for a five second long shot with the popsong singing, we see her kissing Barnabas, we see her in the ending... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!! Develope her character! Develope their love!!! I hate when, in books, characters get together just because the author wants them to get together! NO! Give the character life! How do you do that? Get the character to ask questions! Why are we humans? Because we ask questions, that's how it works! Do something with it!!! That's were the audience can get sucked in by the story because the character feels something because it asks questions.
And then we have the part where the father cheats with another woman and Barnabas gives him one choice: Either be the kind of father his children diserves or leave and never come back. The father leaves... Nothing came out of that scene! The son cries for one scene and then he's back to normal, his actions doesn't change or anything... He didn't have a personality to begin with so why would he get some personality now?!
And then there's this... In the climax, in the beginning of it (don't need spoiler alert because it won't spoil anything for you, I promise) we discover that their daughter has been a warewolf this whole time.... Why? .... Why? .... WHY?! They do explain it, but the explaination is SO weak and... Why haven't this been seen earlier? Why haven't we seen this before and no.. NO! That's NOT a WAREWOLF!!!! What happened to the good old warewulfs?! I'm not a warewolf fan, never was, but... I still don't want to see those warewolves be forgotten. But anyway! Sidetrack! I think they mentioned it ONCE and it was during a popsong so... That doesn't count! Why was she a warewolf? It doesn't make sense! You didn't need it!

I think I've gone through everything... The bigger things that disturbed me anyway. Now I'll be talking about the ending. If you haven't seen the movie yet and doesn't want anything spoiled for you, stop read here. Here I go..

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
The climax... If I tell you it's nothing but chaos will you believe me? THE REST OF THE MOVIE IS NOTHING BUT CHAOS SO WHY WOULDN'T THE CLIMAX BE NOTHING BUT CHAOS?!!!!!!!!!!! ... Breath... Remember to breath.. First it's the fight between Barnabas and the which like it should be. And I was finally recognizing Danny Elfmans music that just gives me shivers everytime I listen to it... Then a gun comes in the way. A woman that owns the Cullins house shoots the which and says "Get out of my house!" ... Did I really just hear that cliché line? I thought we were passed that line. And yeah, then their daughter shows up and she's a warewolf.. She get's killed in a second... OK, we don't see if it kills her but she faints or something! And you know what stops the climax? Not Barnabas, no no... He's a vampire! He's not a hero in this movie! He doesn't stop the evil which no no! ... Turns out the son to the father who left have been talking to his ghost mother the entire movie and it's the ghost mother who we have NOT seen before.. SHE'S the one who kills the which! ... Kind of. I wanted to strangle the movie when I saw that! The climax is as long as Optimus Primes fight with the Fallen and SO many characters gets in the way of it... That just frustrates me!
And then Barnabas goes after Victoria to stop her to commit suicide (it's a whole story), but yeah.. He doesn't really success and in the fall he turns her into a vampire... There is no way in HELL he had the time to bite her, suck her blood until she was near death and then give her his blood in that fall! No way in hell! Also they forgot a small little detail.. Her mouth didn't have ONE drop of blood around it! So not only must he have had the time to turn her, he also had the time to wipe her mouth?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!! Why didn't she die?! The movie would be SO much better if she had died! Then I wouldn't be as frustrated at it as I am! Then the movie would've had some kind of dignity! But NO! We have to make the whole movie a clichéd joke! Why?!

This movie made me so frustrated it made me cry. I have NEVER felt so bad about a movie before. I have NEVER cried out of frustration for a movie before in my entire life! It just felt like a waste of time for all those people who worked on it. They're talented people! Why not make something good?!
Maybe you think I'm being unfair, but this is really how I feel. You're here because you want to know what my feelings towards this movie was, I'm just giving you that. What you think about the movie is up to you.

.. So frustrated! I'm gonna watch something I like now! Bye for now! And Happy Halloween!!