(In seeing this movie, I have effectively proven that I will see anything -
anything - that Johnny Depp is attached to.)
Half of the storyline and all of the screenplay for this one go to Seth Grahame-Smith, who famously (or infamously, whichever) wrote
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (which I haven't read) and
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (which I have). The latter I got for Christmas a couple of years back and have the book review saved here in draft form; I'm waiting to publish until the release of
the movie of the same name.
Seth, truly, has some of the most remarkable ideas in pop culture. But his follow through?
I felt about
Dark Shadows (spoiler alert) exactly the same as I felt about
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - Here was an absolutely
fantastic premise (Johnny Depp is a vampire! From the eighteenth century! Who wakes up in the nineteen-seventies! Alice Cooper cameos!) that is abysmally squandered through
an utter lack of humor and an unnecessarily scattered plot.
It could have been great. Instead, it took itself unapologetically seriously.
C+.
Thanks for protecting me from going to see this movie :) I only saw a few pictures till now and thought I'd go and see it... but now I won't.
ReplyDeleteI would have hoped johnny would make a great vampire but that review doesn't sound too promising
Sasha
It's probably worth a rental if you reeeeally want to see it, but I think you're making the right choice not to see it in the theater!
ReplyDeleteJohnny himself was awesome (as usual), but he alone wasn't enough to make the rest of the movie work for me. :-/ I've never seen the show that the movie is based upon, but I always thought it was pretty campy/funny and this just...didn't quite work for me... :(