At the movies

Dark Shadows
DIRECTED BY: Tim Burton
STARRING: Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Bella Heathcote, Eva Green, Helena Bonham Carter
CERT: 12A

DARK Shadows was a 1960s TV show that apparently had a huge following, no doubt partly because in the 1960s, a vampire show on the telly was a novelty. There was a time when bringing that kind of a show to the big screen would have been seen as wildly original, maybe even too wild.
But that was before every second movie and TV series was obliged to feature a vampire, preferably a young vampire and definitely a fine physical specimen. Vincent Price was a great actor and a fine vampire but a chap like that just won’t get the female fans on board at prime time.
Such an innocent time was long before Tim Burton stopped making original films and started getting together once in a while with his old friend Johnny Depp to make the same movie over and over, in a slightly different disguise.
Burton hasn’t made a genuinely good film since Big Fish in 2003 and the last enjoyable movie he made with Depp was Sleepy Hollow, back in 1999. But still they roll out the same old routine and apparently no one has yet taken them aside and suggested that maybe it’s time for something drastically different.
In Dark Shadows, Depp is Barnabas Collins, the son of a wealthy fishing family whose eye for the ladies gets him in a spot of bother. Barnabas loves Josette Du Pres (Heathcote) but he’s had a flirtation with servant girl Angelique (Green), unaware that she’s a witch who won’t stand for being second. In a fit of mad jealousy, she turns Barnabas into a vampire, then has him buried alive for added spite.
Now, traditionally, vampires are known for their great strength but Barnabas never quite manages to burst his way out of his casket. So when a couple of construction workers unearth the coffin 200 years later, our man is still inside, and he’s very, very thirsty. Which is unfortunate for casual bystanders who never did anything to anyone.
Making his way back to the manor, he finds the old homestead is now run by distant descendant Elizabeth (Pfeiffer) and that the family business is in rough shape. He also discovers that new nanny Victoria is the spit of his old flame Josette and that the mad old witch Angelique still stalks the earth and now runs a successful local fish company.
I suppose that’s some semblance of a plot but for Burton it’s not really the story that matters anymore. It’s the number of opportunities to be dark and quirky for the sake of it, the chance for his wife Helena Bonham Carter to dress up and act weird and for Johnny Depp to paint his face white and do a funny accent. We’ve seen this one before, and before, and before.
On the upside, Burton does still know how to make a scene look great, Seth Grahame-Smith’s screenplay is not without some humorous highlights and a 1970’s soundtrack is never a bad thing.
It’s nice to see Michelle Pfeiffer back in a starring role too, proving that she’s still miles ahead of Hollywood’s new pretenders. It’s good to see that Jonny Lee Miller is still alive and well, turning up here as Pfeiffer’s brother Roger.
Viewers of a certain vintage will remember him as Sick Boy from Trainspotting and as a dashing young highwayman in Plunkett and Macleane. You might also remember him from Hackers, in which he starred alongside Angelina Jolie, who later became his wife.
Ah but that’s a whole lifetime ago now. Back when Tim Burton made movies and Johnny Depp could do more than one character. God be with the days.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation
DIRECTED BY: Adrian Grunberg
STARRING: Mel Gibson, Kevin Hernandez, Peter Stormare
CERT: 16

MEL Gibson’s fine career as an actor and director have been on the back burner while he’s been playing his new role as Hollywood’s chief tabloid villain. As a clear sign that he’s still beyond the pale, his latest outing was not distributed to theatres in the States but went straight to Video-On-Demand last week. On the plus side, it was released there under the title Get The Gringo, a far better name than How I Spent My Summer Vacation, which sounds like it should be a bad horror movie written by a child on his first week back at school.
In any case, Gibson’s continued professional penance is unfortunate because this is a decent film, a return to the kind of gritty but cheeky action movie that made him a star in the first place.
Gibson makes his mark in the first minute, as a nameless getaway driver with a stash of cash in the boot and a dying accomplice in the back seat. He’s being chased by US Border Patrol and ultimately escapes by smashing through the border wall into Mexico.
For his trouble, he ends up in the clutches of the local police, who help themselves to his loot and cart him off to an open prison where the inmates are allowed to have their families come live with them.
The place is fashioned after the notorious El Pueblito in Tijuana and as Gibson’s character observes in his enjoyably sarcastic narration, the convicts enjoy other little luxuries, like weapons, drugs, prostitutes and booming business schemes. “Is this a prison,” he asks, “or the world’s crappiest mall?”
Inside he befriends a nine-year-old boy, played by Kevin Hernandez, a fine young actor and a talent to watch. Eventually our man with no name becomes a target for Frank (Stormare), the criminal whose cash he stole and lost. It also emerges that, well, he might not be such a bad guy and as the eternal optimists like to say, there’s a reason for everything.
Gibson co-wrote the film with Adrian Grunberg, who’s making his directing debut here but worked with Gibson previously as first assistant director on the excellent Apocalypto. In the lead role, the main man is in great old form, having the kind of fun he used to have on the Lethal Weapon films.
Which is a lifetime ago now, back when everyone could laugh at Mel Gibson impersonating Clint Eastwood and say it’s funny and just leave it at that.