Dark Shadows

Rating : 4/10
Release Date : 11th May, 2012
Time : 113 minutes
Director : Tim Burton; Writers : Seth Grahame-Smith; John August (based on the TV Series by Dan Curtis); Music : Danny Elfman
Starring : Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Chloe Grace Moretz, Helena Bonham Carter, Bella Heathcote, Jackie Earle Haley

Another film suffering from an identity crisis. Struggling between a ghost / supernatural genre vs a comedy vs an emotional drama about love and family. It has its moments but has too many ponderous parts for us to really get into it

Johnny Depp is cursed to become a vampire by Eva, who loves him but cannot accept the fact that he doesn’t love her back. Anyways, if she cant have him, she cant let anyone else get him. In other words a classic scorned woman. And so he is chained and buried alive into the ground. Only to awaken 200 years later and find the world has changed, as has his family, with only Eva, thanks to her witchcraft, remaining a constant.

It has its moments of humour, not least while showing Johnny’s bewilderment at the changes in the world. “Bring my horses” or “Mephistopheles !” or his tips on wooing from the 15 year old Chloe, probably being amongst the highlights.

But there are too many characters, too many sub plots and too many emotions thrown at us for it to make sense.

Interesting premise, great acting but a lukewarm story and lack of focus consign it to remain in the dark shadows.

Twilight : Breaking Dawn Part 1

Rating : 3/10
Release Date : 25th November, 2011
Time : 117 minutes
Director : Bill Condon; Writers : Melissa Rosenberg, Stephenie Meyer; Music : Carter Burwell
Starring : Kirsten Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner

This is a fifteen minute storyline stretched out unbearably to almost two hours. Its the first film I’ve seen of this series, had seen a 5 minute clip of one of the previous ones, but even that was more exciting than what happened here

The entire movie seems to be happening in slow motion. The actors (cant even say people) look perpetually worried, scowling either at each other or just generally moping around. Smiles are rare even though there is a wedding and a prolonged honeymoon and an even more prolonged pregnancy. There is the promise of action but it never materialises.

I cant say more for fear of giving the story away but there was barely enough material for a 30 minute Tv episode here and instead a full-blown movie was forced upon us. Some nice locales are the only relief in this otherwise extremely dull movie.