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defrogI watch Hollywood blockbusters. I have opinions. That makes me movie critic, yes?
Dark Shadows
Having never watched the TV show, my only preconception going in was the worry that Tim Burton would turn the gothic soap into an OTT camp-goth Addams Family pastiche (which the movie poster certainly suggested). Luckily, he didn’t. Not entirely, anyway.
The story runs with one of the basic storylines of the TV show – Barnabas Collins, cursed by a spurned lover (who also happens to be a witch) and imprisoned for 200 years, is accidentally freed in 1972 to discover his family survives but is still cursed, while the witch still lives and has taken over the town the Collins family originally founded. Barnabas vows to restore the family name, and in the process many dark secrets are revealed.
A lot of fans of the original TV show (and critics in general) are not happy with the Burton/Depp version, which is more comedy than horror. But I think that’s unfair – partly because Burton’s never really made a horror movie in his life (or at least not a scary one) and partly because from the few YouTube clips I’ve seen, the original Dark Shadows wasn’t scary by 1960s standards, let alone the 21st Century.
For the most part, Burton and scriptwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (author of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter!) avoid the usual pitfalls of the man-out-of-time gimmick, and maintain the right dosage of soap-opera tropes and supernatural camp without going overboard, except for the overblown and somewhat rushed CG ending ("Oh and BTW, this character has been a werewolf all this time!"). But thanks to a top-notch cast having fun with it, Dark Shadows is mighty entertaining, and the best live-action film Burton has done since Sleepy Hollow.
The Avengers
First things first: I was never a big fan of either the Avengers comic or most of the individual titles of the characters involved. Indeed, of the bunch, the Hulk was the only title I read regularly. Also, I never saw the recent films featuring Thor or Captain America.
So, with all that out of the way, I can tell you from the POV of a casual viewer that The Avengers is one of the better comic-book movies I’ve seen, thanks to Joss Whedon knowing better than most people in Hollywood what a comic-book movie ought to be like as an experience – i.e. lotsa epic, well-choreographed fight scenes, a brisk but comprehensible pace and snappy banter, but never taking itself seriously.
It helps that Robert Downey Jr’s take on Iron Man arguably set the gold standard for everyone else in the film. Jeremy Renner makes even Hawkeye look cool, and Mark Ruffalo’s take on David Banner was an unexpected treat – and I say that as someone who liked Eric Bana’s take (and I should add I never saw Ed Norton’s version). Anyway, it’s a hell of a lot more fun than I was expecting. Still don't care for Captain America and Thor, mind you.
Smash hits,
This is dF
Dark Shadows
Having never watched the TV show, my only preconception going in was the worry that Tim Burton would turn the gothic soap into an OTT camp-goth Addams Family pastiche (which the movie poster certainly suggested). Luckily, he didn’t. Not entirely, anyway.
The story runs with one of the basic storylines of the TV show – Barnabas Collins, cursed by a spurned lover (who also happens to be a witch) and imprisoned for 200 years, is accidentally freed in 1972 to discover his family survives but is still cursed, while the witch still lives and has taken over the town the Collins family originally founded. Barnabas vows to restore the family name, and in the process many dark secrets are revealed.
A lot of fans of the original TV show (and critics in general) are not happy with the Burton/Depp version, which is more comedy than horror. But I think that’s unfair – partly because Burton’s never really made a horror movie in his life (or at least not a scary one) and partly because from the few YouTube clips I’ve seen, the original Dark Shadows wasn’t scary by 1960s standards, let alone the 21st Century.
For the most part, Burton and scriptwriter Seth Grahame-Smith (author of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter!) avoid the usual pitfalls of the man-out-of-time gimmick, and maintain the right dosage of soap-opera tropes and supernatural camp without going overboard, except for the overblown and somewhat rushed CG ending ("Oh and BTW, this character has been a werewolf all this time!"). But thanks to a top-notch cast having fun with it, Dark Shadows is mighty entertaining, and the best live-action film Burton has done since Sleepy Hollow.
The Avengers
First things first: I was never a big fan of either the Avengers comic or most of the individual titles of the characters involved. Indeed, of the bunch, the Hulk was the only title I read regularly. Also, I never saw the recent films featuring Thor or Captain America.
So, with all that out of the way, I can tell you from the POV of a casual viewer that The Avengers is one of the better comic-book movies I’ve seen, thanks to Joss Whedon knowing better than most people in Hollywood what a comic-book movie ought to be like as an experience – i.e. lotsa epic, well-choreographed fight scenes, a brisk but comprehensible pace and snappy banter, but never taking itself seriously.
It helps that Robert Downey Jr’s take on Iron Man arguably set the gold standard for everyone else in the film. Jeremy Renner makes even Hawkeye look cool, and Mark Ruffalo’s take on David Banner was an unexpected treat – and I say that as someone who liked Eric Bana’s take (and I should add I never saw Ed Norton’s version). Anyway, it’s a hell of a lot more fun than I was expecting. Still don't care for Captain America and Thor, mind you.
Smash hits,
This is dF
