Dark Shadows Indeed



When did the star of offbeat oddities like Cry Baby, Ed Wood, Dead Man, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and and Ninth Gate decide to become Hollywood's Dial-a-Weirdo? Depp hasn't been the same since Pirates of the Caribbean - a performance that garlanded an unexpected Oscar nomination and global fame and fortune. Previously, Depp rebelled against the Matinee Idol status accorded him by the success of 21 Jump Street in the 1980s, working with John Waters on Cry Baby and Tim Burton on Edward Scissorhands. Now, Depp is set to play Tonto for Disney in a US$200 million reboot of The Lone Ranger...

The trailer for Dark Shadows shows us all of the things we would expect from a new Burton-Depp collaboration - Depp dresses in a dandyish costume, wears white-face make-up and speaks in a declarative voice that calls to mind a hamming English thesp. The entire exercise is akin to a parody of just predictable Burton-Depp's quirky, offbeat style has become.



Naturally Depp's character is a Fish-Out-Of-Water or, more specifically, a vampire out of time. Barnabus Collins was buried for 200 years  before being awoken in 1972 *cue T-Rex*. The voluptuous witch played by French beauty Eva Green is the one bright spark in what otherwise appears to be almost completely devoid of life.

Captain Jack Sparrow, Willy Wonka, The Mad Hatter - ironically, some of Depp's worst performances have given him his biggest hits. What about helping old buddy Terry Gilliam get that Don Quixote film off the ground instead? :)