Remaking TV shows, old or current, is a game not even the best gamblers would play. Indeed, it's probably better to bet $10 million on 00 on the damn roulette tables in Vegas blind-folded on ten straight shots of Patron before thinking of dropping that kind of money (if not more) on a big-screen TV adaptation.
For every "Mission Impossible", you get one "Bewitched". For every "The A-Team", you get "The Honeymooners". For every "Sex in the City", you get...well, "Sex in the City 2".
With that said, any box office analyst who tries to tell me remaking cult classic vampire soap opera "Dark Shadows" wasn't a horrible risk, that analyst will be cordially invited to kiss my ass. Even with Depp/Burton branding and a hot new writer, not to mention a stellar cast, you still may have better odds playing craps with one dice. Luckily, the gamble is a winner this time around.
"Dark Shadows" has all the greatness of the original, and, because the producers aren't idiots, the same storyline as well ("Bewitched" producers, writers, and such, we're talking to you....assholes). Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp), the sole heir to the Collins family fortune and canning business in Collinsport (the town his father founded in New England), to make a long story short, spurns the advances of the wrong witch -- namely Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green), the Collins family housekeeper. When Barnabas takes the hand of another woman, Angelique dispatches Barnabas's would-be wife, and turns Barnabas himself into a vampire. Once the townsfolk turns on him (at the hands of Angelique), they lock him in a coffin and bury him alive (or dead...living dead...whatever).
Fast-forward about 200 years later, Barnabas escapes his confines and discovers two shocking things: (1) The year is 1972, and his beloved Collinsport, and family business, is in shambles, and (2) his beloved Collinwood is now inhabited by his apparent relatives -- Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer), Roger (Johnny Lee Miller), Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moritz), and David (Gulliver McGrath), as well as groundskeeper Willie Loomis (Jackie Earl Haley) and family therapist Dr. Julia Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter). Finding his family estate and business in shambles, Barnabas vows to take the reigns once more and make people proud of the Collins name once more. However, he is faced with three huge distractions: (1) an ever-growing infatuation with the new family nanny Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote), (2) Angelique, now a successful businesswoman who's been stealing business from the Collins family business, knows of Barnabas's return, and wants revenge...or his affections, and (3) his unquenchable thirst for blood.
Director Tim Burton brings the cult classic to life much in the style of "Sleepy Hollow" and "Sweeney Todd" with conservative light and clever use of (wait for it...) darkness and shadows. The true gem of the film is the amazing script written by Seth Grahame-Smith (author of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", as well as the author and subsequent screenwriter of "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter", due out this June). It's obvious Grahame-Smith is a fan of the original series, and proves it with his dark, twisted, often self-referential screenplay that makes even the most hardened fans rejoice.
Though ill-conceived timing is ruining the film's box office revenue (going against "The Avengers" being the biggest factor), "Dark Shadows" offers many laughs, thrills, and chills of a typical Burton film. Granted, I never watched the classic show, but, luckily for me, many of my friends (and my girlfriend) are, so I had a lot to base it on. There hasn't been a Tim Burton sequel since "Batman Returns", but this is one that clearly deserves it.
FINAL VERDICT: Stellar performances and a script and art direction true to the original source material, "Dark Shadows" is a vampire film that doesn't suck. Without the typical glam and glitz of a typical movie of its caliber (not to mention without glittery vampires), "Dark Shadows" gets down to the bloody business without draining your bloody patience.
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