I never watched the TV series but for some reason I gave the new Tim Burton Johnny Deep Dark Shadows film a shot. I'm sorry I did. I saw it with a group of eight and others did enjoy it, but if I had been seated at the end of the row instead of in the center, I would have walked out of boredom.
The trailer makes it out to be a comedy but while there were a few laughs, they were mostly in the trailer and were few and far between in a film just under two hours long. That might be ok if there had been something else to fill the time, but even with a good cast and lots of roles and even some soapy stuff going on, there was just nothing engaging. Notice I said roles, because there really aren't characters.
200 years ago, the witch Angelique (Eva Green) was spurned by Barnabas (Johnny Depp) so she kills his family, his love and turns him into a vampire and imprisons him. He escapes in 1972 to find his descendants living in his estate but not doing very well. We're introduced to the matriarch (Michelle Pfeiffer), her teenage daughter (Chloe Grace Moretz), the useless wicked brother (Jonny Lee Miller), his troubled son (Gulliver McGrath), the live in shrink (Helena Bonham Carter), the new governess (Bella Heathcote) and the old groundskeeper (Jackie Earle Haley). Angelique is still around and basically owns the town. There you now know virtually everything there is to know about the characters. They're in scenes but we don't get to know any of them. Barnabas is the only one we kinda get to know, but his scenes are mostly about being a 200 year old fish out of water. That works for a bit, but not for two hours.
There were some songs from the early 70s I liked.
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