Tim Burton: What the fuck happened?

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before when I started to get seriously into films there were a number of directors I became mildly obsessed with: Kevin Smith, Terry Gilliam, & Tim Burton. Much like the interest with Gilliam I mentioned last time, my appreciation of Tim Burton began before I even knew who Tim Burton was.

As a child I gravitated towards the outlandish, I’d watch pretty much anything with robots, aliens, superheroes or monsters, anything that wasn’t inside the normal realm. Which is why I loved Beetlejuice, a tale of ghosts & ghouls, and why I loved Batman. Like anyone my age or older, your first exposure to the caped crusader was through the 1960’s TV series with Adam West, of course since Burton’s Batman there have been numerous films and series featuring Bruce Wayne and his alter-ego. But when I was a kid Adam West was pretty much it, so when Burton unleashed his version of the dark knight it was a revelation, he was just that, a dark knight.

After that came the urban fairy-tale of Edward Scissorhands, and Burton’s first team up with Johnny Depp. Again very much drawn to it, still having no idea these films were all made by the same man.

Then came the only sequel he’s ever done, Batman Returns. I went to see this at the cinema with my Dad and his friend, feeling incredibly lucky to do so, as the film was a 12, and at the time I was only 11. Granted nowadays we have 12A, if you’re under 12 it is acceptable to watch a film of that certification if accompanied by an adult. But this was ten years before that classification existed, basically I’d seen Batman Returns when I shouldn’t have and that made me cool…in my head at least.

After Batman returns Burton served up Ed Wood, Mars Attacks, and Sleepy Hollow, as well as serving as producer on the phenomena that is A Nightmare Before Christmas, an animated feature based on his own story and directed by Henry Selick.

Then it started to go all a bit wrong, while many of his previous films had spawned from some sort of source material, Mars Attacks was created around images from a series of bubblegum cards, not since Batman had Burton tackled something so established as The Planet of The Apes. I’m sure I’ve mentioned in some previous post about my love of the original apes films, and I’ve already mentioned here my love of Burton, so when I first learned that the two were coming together I was somewhat excited, but ultimately disappointed. In attempting a remake, reboot, rehash, whichever word you care to use, any sense of character and charm the original films had was wiped clean.

The often forgotten Big Fish followed, and quickly after came another Burton reworking with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and although it stuck much closer to the book, and had the trademark Burton look, it had, like Planet of the Apes, also lost the magic of the original. Gene Wilder will always be Willy Wonka.

Things started to look up as Burton started to diversify, directing his first animated feature in The Corpse Bride, and his first musical in Sweeney Todd. But the improvement in output was temporary, yet again Burton molested the established, but rather than cry rape, Alice in Wonderland, grew up and went on a killing spree. It was the second highest earning film in America after the Oscar winning Toy Story 3. But after watching I was the one feeling abused.

Which leads us up nicely to Dark Shadows…

When I saw the trailer I’m not going to lie, I had no desire to see this movie, it looked shit, and Burton’s let me down so many times in recent years. The film’s based upon a gothic soap opera that ran in America in the late sixties/early seventies, which about six months in introduced ghosts to the mix. But it wasn’t until the arrival of Vampire Barnabas Collins, that the show really took off.

Johnny Depp plays Barnabas, in his 7^th film with Burton, a man who’s spurned lover casts a spell upon him, turning him into a vampire, and then leads the towns people against him, eventually burying him alive..ish. This first 20 minutes, given a bit of fleshing out could have made a good movie. Barnabas however is accidently dug up 200 years later, and after gorging on the unsuspecting construction workers sets about restoring his family to their former glory.

As I’ve said I didn’t want to see this movie, but the future Mrs Lazertooth likes Burton, likes horror, and loves Depp, so because she wanted to see it, we went. For the most part I was pleasantly surprised, the set up was good, and as it started to unfold it carried along the same lines. But the longer it went on the more I started to have issues with it. Burton was attempting to recreate the soap opera feel, adding more and more elements, each character having their own storylines. The problem with this method is nothing is explored, everything is rushed, if it had been made into a TV series it would have had the room to breathe, but having it crammed into two hours suffocates it.

Then we get to the climax of the movie, and what a fucking car crash that was. It seems like Burton saw how much money the Twilight films have made, and thought I can pull that shit off, however he also seems to be trying to make Alice in Wonderland. It’s like the fly. Twilight attempting a transportation experiment, while its not looking Alice in Wonderland flys into the chamber, the two fused together in some mutated monstrosity, better off dead and buried under the patio.

It is a real shame, the character of Barnabas is brilliant, and brilliantly played by Depp. If the film focused more on him, and less on the other shallow stories, like the thieving uncle, or the werewolf cousin, and focused more on Barnabas trying to fit into the modern world, or at least 1972, it would have worked.

Top Tim

Since I’m trashing him somewhat it’s only fair I mention a few of my favourite Burton productions:

1.       Beetlejuice (1988) – This was the film that helped to make his name. The tale of a recently deceased couple who hire fellow spook Beetlejuice to scare out the current residents from their beloved home, but end up wishing they’d left ‘the ghost with the most’ well alone.

2.       Batman (1989) – The Burton Breakthrough. After Beetlejuice had proven his talents, Burton was intrusted with what was hoped to be a lucrative franchise.

The Dark Knight may be a brilliant Batman movie, especially Heath Ledger’s Joker performance, but this is still my favourite Cinema outing of the caped crusader.

3.       Ed Wood (1994) – A Biographical film chronicling the early life of the man dubbed ‘worst director of all time’, from his first Hollywood steps to the premiere of his most famous work.

The use of black & white helps give it the feel of a 1950’s production, as well as giving the film a warmth, which in turn helps to highlight the enthusiasm and genuine caring of an extremely interesting individual.