FILM REVIEW: DARK SHADOWS

Barnabas Collins (Johhny Depp) in Dark Shadows.

Sinking to Lower Depp

By Don Simpson

Way back in the mid-1770s, Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) -- master of Collinwood Manor -- falls in love with Josette (Bella Heathcote), thus shattering the heart of his voluptuous chambermaid, Angelique (Eva Green). Unfortunately for Barnabas, the scorned woman is a real bitch of a witch. In retaliation, Angelique turns Barnabas into a vampire and buries him alive (well, technically undead).

Just shy of two centuries later, Barnabas is freed from his tomb and unleashed upon the strange glam rock world of the 1970s. The Collinwood Manor is horribly dilapidated and the remaining Collins family have fallen into financial ruin. Barnabas makes it his primary goal to help the family matriarch, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer), restore the economic vitality of the Collins name. In the meantime, Barnabas falls in love with Victoria (Heathcote, again) -- who looks a heck of a lot like Josette -- and must once again face the jealous wrath of Angelique, who is known in this century as Angie.

Dark Shadows is director Tim Burton’s eighth collaboration with Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands; Sleepy Hollow; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street; etc). While most critics cite Alice in Wonderland as their low point, I would save that distinction for the Dark Shadows because despite their supposed interest in making this film, the duo seem to have not expended any effort on the story at all. Rather than developing a more reverent film, Dark Shadows is a mockery of the source 1960s television series -- turning a serious and subtle evening soap opera into a mindless spoof. In the television series, Jonathan Frid’s restrained portrayal of Barnabas is what adds an air of creepiness to the show. Depp, however, decides to play Barnabas with a level of camp that is rivaled only by his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in The Pirates of Caribbean franchise. In Depp’s hands, Barnabas is nothing more than a buffoonish clown -- no thanks to the embarrassing immaturity of Seth Grahame-Smith’s screenplay -- who recites one ridiculous line after another. Considering the infantile intellectual level of some of the sight gags, I can only imagine that Dark Shadows was written for a pre-pubescent audience. This also explains why Burton chose to go with absolutely no plot, opting for a two-note joke: Look at the silly vampire! Listen to what the silly vampire is saying!

Despite being Barnabas’ object of desire, Victoria disappears from the story for long stretches of time, yet somehow we are supposed to accept that Barnabas loves her. Allusions of her connection to Barnabas’ first love are dropped almost immediately, as if Burton and Grahame-Smith could not wrap their heads around such a “complex” concept. As with Angie -- who is purely a sex object -- Victoria’s purpose in Dark Shadows is merely a physical one. Another example is Chloë Grace Moretz’s seductive portrayal of Carolyn Stoddard, which is nothing more than a pedophile fantasy. Then, there is the live-in psychiatrist of Collinwood, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Burton's wife and regular performer Helena Bonham Carter), who is defined only by her alcoholism and cartoonishly colored hair. In Burton and Grahame-Smith’s hands, the women of Dark Shadows have no depth. They are only objects for us to see, but never know or understand.

However, the men of Dark Shadows do not fare much better. Elizabeth’s brother, Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) and his 10-year-old son, David Collins (Gully McGrath), get so little attention that I can only assume that they were only included to fill up some space in the  mansion. Jackie Earle Haley -- who plays Willie Loomis, the caretaker of Collinwood -- is really the only actor who seems to be trying to do anything in this film.

Further exemplifying Burton’s favoritism of images over story or dialogue, he uses a vibrant 1970s color palate as a backdrop. One could only assume that Burton thought a 200-plus-year old vampire would blend in too much in any other decade, so he chose to set this story in the 1970s. This also allows Burton to pummel us into submission with a cheesy 1970s pop soundtrack, including a shameless cameo by “No More Mr. Nice Guy” himself, Alice Cooper!

FILM REVIEW: PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN IV

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Slow ride

By Allan Heifetz

Truth be told, I’m not a fan of the first three installments of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. They always left me wanting less -- less characters, less CGI spectacle and less of a convoluted and confusing story. These movies, inspired by an amusement park ride, bludgeon you over the head with swashbuckling until you just want to close your eyes and experience something close to nothingness.

At any rate, I was sort of looking forward to Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which comes four years after the third and most hated chapter, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. This time there is no Orlando Bloom (Will) or Kiera Knightley (Elizabeth) mucking up the works; Johnny Depp’s “delightful” Captain Jack Sparrow is now front and center and ready to give us a good time.

After pulling off the daring rescue of his pal, Gibbs (Kevin McNally), from a London jail, Jack runs into Angelica (Penelope Cruz), an old flame turned adventurer who happens to be the daughter of the infamous Blackbeard (Ian McShane). Against his will, Jack ends up on Blackbeard’s ship and is forced to guide the scary captain and his daughter to the fabled Fountain of Youth. At the same time, Jack's old rival, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), is sailing to the fountain as well, having snagged the job of captain on a royal expedition to plunder the fountain’s powers. Oh yeah, the Spaniards have a ship in the race, too (just one of many story elements that could have been easily ripped out of the movie). On their way Blackbeard and crew must find some ancient chalices and snag a mermaid’s tear to help them activate the fountain.

What I like most about the Pirates of the Caribbean movies is the makeup; a real sense of griminess and decrepitude permeates every scene. Everyone has horribly decaying teeth and is covered in soot. I could barely pay attention to the story for imagining just how ungodly these characters must smell. No toothbrushes? No showers? No vitamin C? Dear lord, can’t we just kill them all and let god brush their teeth? Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides coasts along on sheer spectacle for a good long while before that inevitable fatigue hits us. In the meantime there are some great set pieces, breathtaking crane shots of awesome looking ships and a pretty cool scene in which Jack's crew falls victim to a school of seductive and super vicious killer mermaids.

Running for a total of 136 minutes, Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides makes us wait two hours to get to the Fountain of Youth only to do absolutely nothing with the idea of a mythical magical fountain. Nobody ages rapidly and disintegrates in front of your eyes; nobody drinks too much from the fountain and turns into a baby or anything. Imagine if, at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Dr. René Belloq (Paul Freeman) opens the ark to find nothing but sand and then…that’s it. No screaming ghosts and no melting faces. That’s sort of what the finale of Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides is like.

Depp’s charm is palpable in Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides, but after two hours of Jack cracking wise, messing shit up and acting like a goof you sort of want him to stop the shenanigans, get angry and be a real hero. I prefer an action hero like an Indiana Jones who is serious, troubled, super-focused and will crack a joke only when cornered. Jack is too silly and unreliable to really get behind. All he does is stumble into tedious sword fights and swing on things. I hate to say it, but isn’t sword fighting in general fairly dull to watch? It’s especially dull in Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides since the film’s violence is completely sterilized and bloodless. After any given large scale sword fight you’re never sure whether everyone was killed or nobody was killed. Since nothing is at stake, you are never fully involved in the action. You know what Indy does to swordsmen? ‘Nuff said.

Cruz’s Angelica has all the gravitas of lovely Spanish wallpaper. She made me pine for the enchanting and smashed-in face of Knightley. Cruz was super shrill, annoying and hard to understand in Blow (2001) -- the first film she appeared in with Depp and in Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides -- and she continues from there. Clearly Jack and Angelica are supposed to have Indy/Marion Ravenwood (Harrison Ford/Karen Allen) like chemistry, but Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides has no classic reunion scene like the one in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy walks into Marion’s Tibetan tavern after all those years only to get punched in the jaw. Jack and Angelica run into each other, spew a lot of awkward exposition about their past and continue to bitch back and forth until the end. We don’t care about their love. McShane’s Blackbeard is quite frightening at first, but over the course of this endless movie he loses his presence. It would have helped if we knew why he had supernatural powers and if we got to see a bit of his back story.

Of course Keith Richards pops in for a meaningless cameo as Jack‘s pirate dad. What a horrible relationship this father and son have. Senior surprises Junior. Junior says “Hi, Dad.” Senior gives Junior some quick warnings in a pub and then vanishes into thin air when Junior isn’t looking. Wouldn’t a hug have been better?

Directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago; Nine), and credited to nine different writers, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides doesn’t really improve on the previous films and, unless the next one gets an R rating, costs two million to make and is directed by Neill Blomkamp (District 9), I don’t have much hope for the franchise.

Oh, and of course the 3D glasses made everything a little darker and therefore had me wishing I could watch it in 2D. Idea: why not boost the brightness on the entire film one stop so the glasses will make the picture normal? Genius.

FILM REVIEW: RANGO

Rango (voice by Johnny Depp) and Beans (voice by Isla Fisher) in Rango.

Sometimes dirt hurts

By John Esther

Once an imprisoned chameleon living inside ("In Shreads") a little aquarium where his only friend was a plastic fish, a female doll torso, and his elaborate imagination, Rango (voice by Johnny Depp) winds up on an escapade from divided road to wholesale wilderness which will seriously challenge his sense of self in the delightfully surprising, entertaining, animated movie, Rango.

Stranded under a sweltering landscape with the unknown hidden under every rock and soaring above the cacti, after Rango survives a few car crashes, he and his zygodactylous feet hike it on over to the town of Dirt.

Like the "good people" of any little redneck town, Dirt immediately casts Rango as an outsider. To impress the various quasi-reptilian, amphibious, marsupial, rodent characters, Rango tells a few tall tales. With hides and hares yet no proof to back his fibs, the town becomes smitten with the stranger. Of course, as ill luck would have it, someone calls Rango's bluff and he will have to prove his worth, especially to Beans (voice by Isla Fisher), the lonely ranch girl with true grit and a strange defense mechanism.

After he manages to imprint his legend amongst the wild southwestern inhabitants, the Mayor (voice by Ned Beatty) makes Rango the Dirt Sheriff; and that is when his work becomes downright ornery difficult. Rango may have convinced the town he killed seven bandits with one bullet (false) and a bird of prey (true), but his real challenge will be to find out who has been stealing the precious water supply.

"He who controls the water, controls everything," the Mayor explains. Hopefully Rango, at the right time and place, will be capable of anything.

With a renewed sense of hope found in the form of the one they call Rango, the notably un-cutesy town folk, cold-blooded and warm-blooded alike, form a posse and go hunting for the stolen water, only to find more and more hardship, treachery and even a little murder along the way.

Pushed to the stink of collapse, once Rango looses everything he figures this is his real existential test and he forms a plan to get payback Dirt. There is never a doubt he will succeed by film's end, but the movie does have its charms.

As far as the hack director/leading man team behind the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise this is the second time Gore Verbinski has made something worth watching once (the first and last time was the 2005 film, The Weather Man, starring Nicolas Cage) and the first movie starring Depp since the 1998 film, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas -- a film Rango incorporates into its narrative -- that may be worth watching twice. Written by John Logan and based on a story by Logan, Verbinski and James Ward Byrkit, it seems pretty clear they had Depp in mind when writing Rango and he does do an adequate, occasionally inspiring, performance at it.

(At any rate, Depp is an actor whose considerable talents continue to be wasted for big paychecks, punished by poor script choices and woefully encouraged by pitiful Oscar nominations. I look forward to the day he stops playing some eccentric malcontent and gets back to the level of acting he reached during the 1990s.)

On another hand, casting director Denise Chamian made some very intelligent voiceover casting choices in the form of Fisher (about time!); Beatty, who sure can squeal, also plays bad pretty well (i.e. He Got Game; Shooter; last year's overlooked The Killer Inside Me); Bill Nighy as the awesomely mean Rattlesnake Jake; Harry Dean Stanton as the ugliest of the ugly, Balthazar; Alfred Molina as the "Spanish" sagebrush sage, Roadkill; Gil Birmingham as the philosophical native, Wounded Bird; the diurnal owls who make up el Grecia-chorus (George Delhoyo, Verbinski, plus others) and Byrkit, who marvelously plays Waffles -- my favorite character in the movie.

They and the others make for a good cast who embrace Logan's smart, playful dialogue, often with characters mumbling/speaking simultaneously (Oh, Altman). Set in the southwest, the screenplay willfully blends many familiar Spanish words (e.g. amigo, ese, loco) in with the English dialogue, which seems a calculated choice to not only include Spanglish-speaking viewers, but also to remind viewers the intrinsic part Latinos have played in terms of North American geopolitics -- from storytelling to music to idiomatic developments -- throughout our country's history.

Then there are some dialogue humdingers worthy of Lautréamont, Lewis Carroll or a good Coen Bros. film: "He basked in the adulation of his compañeros as he sunk deeper into his own guacamole," the chorus tells us; "It's a puzzle. It's a mammogram," Waffles announces; "If this was heaven, we'd be eating pop tarts with Kim Novack," retorts Spirit of the West (Timothy Olyphant), channeling the Malpaso Man.

Keeping in tune with Rango's rambunctiousness, the score by Hans Zimmer and a soundtrack featuring Los Lobos are riotously rowdy and, frankly, quite gutsy for a film marketed toward family consumption. Be sure to stay for the rip-roaring song during the final credits.

However, via its quest to secure the box office base, Rango is not going to drown out anyone's sense of entertainment entitlement. Eventually the good guys drink up and the bad guys get washed away as the film proudly riverruns toward the false conclusions that the powerful get splashed with their comeuppance and the good guy swimmingly emerges over all adversity while getting the girl in two boots to boot. Watering it down for mass consumption, regardless of Rango's attributes, it is not going tragically Chinatown or the United States of America today.