I wasn’t expecting much from Dark Shadows, the latest in the ubiquitous onslaught of vampire films, so to say the film lived up to my expectations may be a bit misleading as far as its overall quality. Tim Burton’s latest collaboration with Johnny Depp is good enough to amuse, but not quite good enough to do anything else. It’s not overly funny, though it’s supposed to be a comedy, and it’s not scary at all, though it has elements of horror running through it as well. So the result is a hodgepodge of tonal inconsistencies, and though it has brief moments of the Burton we used to know, Dark Shadows is, ironically, a vampire movie with no bite.

Depp plays Barnabas Collins, a member of an industrious English family that moves to America to start a fishing business. When he spurns the love of his household servant, Angelique (Eva Green), he’s messed with the wrong girl: she’s actually a witch, and proceeds to murder his parents, kill the love of his life, turn Barnabas into a vampire, and then bury him alive for 200 years. Yikes. He’s released in 1972, and the rest of the movie is a series of culture shocks mixed in with a meandering story about Barnabas attempting to restore the family to its former glory. The modern-day Collins family is kind of a mess: Michelle Pfeiffer plays the matriarch, barely keeping their floundering business afloat; Chloe Moretz plays a testy teenager with an attitude; Gulliver McGrath is David, a young boy who can see ghosts; and Jonny Lee Miller plays the young boy’s philandering father. The rest of the supporting cast includes Helena Bonham Carter as a live-in doctor who is supposed to be helping David, Jackie Earle Haley as a drunken servant, and Bella Heathcote as Victoria Winters, David’s nanny and the new love interest for Barnabas.

Burton and Seth Grahame-Smith, the screenwriter, seem much more interested in comedy than horror here. They’d be lost, however, without Depp’s performance as the proper 18th century Englishman; his delivery of verbose dialogue provides fodder for many humorous encounters with 1970s technology, such as when he sees a car for the first time coming at him through the forest and yells at Satan, “mark me not with your strange luminance!” Ultimately, though, these moments alone aren’t enough to keep us laughing throughout. There’s only so much of that one gag we can take before it starts to fall flat, and while the rest of the cast is undoubtedly talented, the script doesn’t give them much to work with in the way of comedy.

Also inconsistent are the rules of vampiric lore, which seem to be played as a punch line when convenient and ignored elsewhere. Barnabas literally catches on fire at one point when he’s hit by a beam of sunlight (typical in the vampire mythos), but other times he carries on conversations while standing in the sun, sometimes not even fully covered by an umbrella or dark clothing. It’s a sign of laziness on the screenwriter’s part, wanting to have it both ways so Barnabas can operate during the day and interact with the 70s setting instead of being confined to the night (as he should have been). And speaking of inconsistencies, the love story between Barnabas and Victoria Winters seemed totally out of nowhere and completely unearned. There’s a revelation near the end that, despite describing the reasoning for her character being there, still doesn’t really make a ton of sense, and then a series of events during the film’s climax that is still baffling to me. Proper setup and payoffs apparently weren’t high on anyone’s priority list.

Eva Green’s performance is the only other worth mentioning, since she did some great work as the jealous witch. Her character is one of the few that I felt really committed to the classical melodrama the film was attempting to recreate (there’s a nice scene at the beginning when she turns Barnabas into a vampire), and her cracking facade near the film’s end was one of the coolest visual effect tricks in a movie that was surprisingly boring in that regard (especially considering Burton’s proclivity for cartoonish designs).

There’s a nice message in Dark Shadows about how family is the only true measure of wealth, but sadly that’s one of the few things that’s actually clearly presented in this zany story. Burton and Depp have been in a comfortable groove for a long time, and I can’t help but wonder if they’d both be better off working together in a totally different type of movie, one that ditches the gothic setting and idiosyncratic characters in favor of something fresh and new. At the same time, though, I appreciate the fact that Burton has carved out a place for himself in the movie landscape, as it’s always difficult for artists to establish a voice in this marketplace. I just wish he’d sing a different tune once in a while. (Big Fish, anyone?) Until next time…

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With the movie less than two months away we’ve finally been given the first trailer for Tim Burton’s latest, Dark Shadows. In my opinion the movie looks funny at the very least, so color me interested.

Watch the trailer below:

Based on the 60′s cult TV series with the same name, Dark Shadows is a gothic horror tale centered around vampire Barnabas Collins, played by Johnny Deep.

In 19th century, Barnabas is a rich playboy in Collinsport, Maine, master of the Collinwood Manor. When he breaks the heart Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green), a witch, she turns him into a vampire and buries him alive. The year is 1972, two centuries have past when Barnabas is accidentally freed from his coffin and returned to basically a new world. Here he finds the Collinwood Manor in ruin and the remnants of his family, a dysfunctional bunch, residing there.

Directed by Tim Burton, Dark Shadows stars Johnny Deep, Eva Green, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jackie Earl Haley and obviously Helena Bonham Carter, can’t have a Burton film without her now can we.

Dark Shadows opens May 11th in theaters and IMAX.

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Here is our first look at Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham in the new adaptation of Great Expectations. Usually when we see Helena Bonham Carter in abnormal clothing it’s in a Tim Burton movie, but on this occasion Mike Newall (Prince of Persia, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) is directing.

The movie, written by Rowan Joffe (28 Weeks Later, The American) follows the orphan Pip (War Horse‘s Jeremy Irvine) across the span of thirty years as he rises to wealth, deserts his true friends, and becomes humbled by his own arrogance. It also features one of Dickens’s more colorful characters in literature: Miss Havasham. She is a wealthy spinster who sits in her mouldering mansion still wearing the wedding dress she wore when she was jilted at the altar. Although she has often been portrayed in films as very elderly, Dickens’s own notes indicate that she is only in her mid-fifties, so Helena Bonham Carter is well suited for the role.

Also among the cast are Ralph Fiennes as escaped convict Magwitch, Robbie Coltrane as London lawyer Mr. Jaggers, Jason Flemyng as Pip’s brother-in-law and father figure, and Sally Hawkins as Mrs. Joe Gargery, Pip’s, hot-tempered adult sister.

Lionsgate aim to release Great Expectations in late-2012 in the UK, and the search is on for a US distributor.

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Universal has just set a December 7, 2012 release date for Les Miserables, a new version of the classic novel and Broadway musical set in 19th-century France. We’ve previously heard that The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper is on-board, as is Hugh Jackman, and now they look set to be joined by Russell Crowe and Helena Bonham Carter.

According to THR Crowe will play Javert, the uncompassionate police inspector who will stop at nothing to recapture Jean Valjean (Jackman), the man who steals bread to feed his sister and spends the ensuing years in prison (or trying to escape it) while also becoming the guardian of a young woman named Cosette. Carter, who just worked with Hooper on The King’s Speech, will play Thenardier’s greedy wife.

William Nicholson (Gladiator) has adapted the screenplay based on Victor Hugo’s sprawling 1862 novel. Working Title (Atonement) are producing, as is Sir Cameron MacKintosh who produced the stage version of the musical. Filming will begin later this year.

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Heat Vision reports that Helena Bonham Carter, Dwight Yoakam and Barry Pepper are all in talks to join Johnny Depp in Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger.

Helena Bonham Carter, currently seen in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, will play “the madam of a brothel who deals with gentlemen and scoundrels.” Dwight Yoakam (Crank: High Voltage) will play Butch Cavendish, leader of the gang that attacks the ranger and leaves him for dead, while Barry Pepper, Emmy-nominated for his turn as Bobby Kennedy in The Kennedys, will act as a military officer.

Disney will be releasing The Lone Ranger on December 21, 2012. The Social Network actor Armie Hammer will play the title character, with Johnny Depp playing the Ranger’s Native American companion Tonto.

Filming is scheduled to begin in mid-October in Texas and New Mexico.

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Following on from the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 poster we got earlier this week featuring Harry, Ron and Hermione in the rubble of Hogwarts, Warner Bros. has released one for the villains, namely Voldemort, Bellatrix and Lucius Malfoy, with Narcissa in the background.

Check the full poster below:

In related Deathly Hallows news Dark Horizons tweeted today that a new trailer “should hit early Friday morning U.S. time.” We knew one was coming, and it looks like Warner Bros are attaching it to Green Lantern. I can’t wait.

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Johnny Depp is a busy guy. Once he’s finished promotion for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides he’ll be heading to London to start shooting his 8th collaboration with Tim Burton, Dark Shadows.

Today Warner Bros. sent out a press release announcing the start of production, along with the official synopsis for the movie.

Filming begins this week on Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Village Roadshow Pictures’ “Dark Shadows,” which brings the cult classic television series to the big screen under the direction of Tim Burton. The film’s all-star ensemble cast includes Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Bella Heathcote, Chloe Moretz, and newcomer Gulliver McGrath.

In the year 1752, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas (Johnny Depp) has the world at his feet—or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy…until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive.

Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets. Matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michelle Pfeiffer) has called upon live-in psychiatrist, Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), to help with her family troubles.

Also residing in the manor is Elizabeth’s ne’er-do-well brother, Roger Collins, (Jonny Lee Miller); her rebellious teenage daughter Carolyn Stoddard (Chloe Moretz); and Roger’s precocious 10-year-old son, David Collins (Gulliver McGrath). The mystery extends beyond the family, to caretaker Willie Loomis, played by Jackie Earle Haley, and David’s new nanny, Victoria Winters, played by Bella Heathcote.

It’s also worth noting that cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) is working on the film so at least it will look great, even if Burton delivers another average film like he did with Alice in Wonderland. Burton has been hit and miss over recent years so hopefully he makes something along the lines of Sleepy Hollow and Sweeney Todd.

Dark Shadows is scheduled for release on May 11th, 2012.

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Last week we heard Jeremy Irvine, the young actor chosen by Steven Spielberg to lead his WWII epic War Horse, was in talks to play the lead character of Pip in Mike Newell’s adaptation of the classic Dickens novel Great Expectations alongside Helena Bonham Carter, who was in talks to play Miss Havisham.

Now it looks like we may see a Voldemort/Bellatrix reunion as according to The Daily Mail Ralph Fiennes is in discussions to play Magwitch, a father-figure to Pip who has spent his life as a criminal. It’s not a done deal though, as Fiennes is currently set to play Prospero in Trevor Nunn’s version of The Tempest on stage, so there may be scheduling conflicts.

Director Mike Newall (Prince of Persia, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) plans to shoot in and around London in August, so if Fiennes takes the role he would have to shoot his scenes during the day and then do his stage performances in the evening. The actor is also in talks to play a ‘darkly complex’ role in Bond 23, but filming won’t begin until November.

The script, which is being written by Rowan Joffe (28 Weeks Later, The American) follows the orphan Pip (Irvine) across the span of thirty years as he rises to wealth, deserts his true friends, and becomes humbled by his own arrogance. It also features one of Dickens’s more colorful characters in literature: Miss Havasham. She is a wealthy spinster who takes Pip on as a companion and whom Pip suspects is his benefactor.

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According to Variety Jeremy Irvine, the young actor chosen by Steven Spielberg to lead his WWII epic War Horse, is in talks to play the lead character of Pip in Mike Newell’s adaptation of the classic Dickens novel Great Expectations.

The site also mentions Helena Bonham Carter, who recently received a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Oscars for The King’s Speech, is in talks to play Miss Havisham.

The script, which is being written by Rowan Joffe (28 Weeks Later, The American) follows the orphan Pip (Irvine) across the span of thirty years as he rises to wealth, deserts his true friends, and becomes humbled by his own arrogance. It also features one of Dickens’s more colorful characters in literature: Miss Havasham. She is a wealthy spinster who takes Pip on as a companion and whom Pip suspects is his benefactor. Although she has often been portrayed in film versions as very elderly, Dickens’s own notes indicate that she is only in her mid-fifties, so Helena Bonham Carter seems perfect for the role.

If everything comes together filming is expected to start later this year for a 2012 release.

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The British Academy of Film and Television Arts displayed their unabashed favoritism toward British films this Sunday by showering The King’s Speech with seven awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Colin Firth. The biggest surprise is probably the fact that Tom Hooper did not grab the directing prize after his DGA win. Instead, he watched David Fincher (The Social Network) walk away with that one.

The other huge shocker was Christian Bale’s (The Fighter) Supporting Actor loss to Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech). Bale has swept almost every single Supporting Actor prize, big and small, this awards season, so it was unexpected to have him go home empty handed, especially this close to the Academy Awards. I truly hope it doesn’t hurt his chances at an Oscar win.

The King’s Speech also nabbed the Supporting Actress award for Helena Bonham Carter’s performance as Queen Elizabeth. It makes me wonder if the BAFTAs would have blindly given The King’s Speech the Best Actress prize too, had there been a nominee.

Most of the rest of the awards were predictable: Darren Aronofsky (director of Black Swan) accepted Natalie Portman’s Best Actress award (she’s super pregnant and didn’t attend the ceremony); Aaron Sorkin was honored for The Social Network’s Adapted Screenplay; Toy Story 3, of course, won Best Animated Film; and Inception was given three of those awards that nobody is very interested in (Sound, Production Design, and Special Visual Effects).

It’ll be interesting to see how much of an impact the BAFTAs have on the Academy Awards. You can see the full list of BAFTA nominees and winners here.

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