Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter: a winning formula or a comfort zone?

Tim Burton's latest film Dark Shadows is a Gothic fantasy-comedy starring (you guessed it) Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Having already seen the likes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd and Alice in Wonderland - all of which starred Depp and Bonham Carter - presented in Burton's characteristic Gothic style in the last decade this is a more than familiar match up. Many would argue that this is of no surprise - after all, if it ain't broke why fix it? For example, 2010's Alice in Wonderland was the second highest grossing film of that year and the ninth highest grossing film of all time.

                                  Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in Alice in Wonderland
My question is, however, whether it really is a sensible move for Burton to keep on doing what he does best or if it just because he is reluctant to find his way out of that bat-infested, cob-web riddled belfry that I imagine is his comfort zone. My evidence for such a view, while perhaps controversial, lies in a his bold but critically-panned 2001 remake of The Planet of the Apes. First and foremost, any attempt at a remake of the genre defining original Planet of the Apes was never going to be easy. The original set the standards for science fiction and blew the minds of just about anybody who saw it (if you've never seen it I am confident the last ten minutes will leave you reeling). So, Burton, a director at the top of his game with a repertoire including the cult hit The Nightmare Before Christmas and a successful reboot of the Batman franchise, attempted something daring and, if successful, potentially career-defining. However, The Planet of the Apes, while relatively successful at the box office, was critically shunned and forever ridiculed for Burton's bewildering re-writing of that mind-blowing ending.

                                                     Burton, Bonham Carter and Depp
If we look at the films that followed (aside from the unique Big Fish which was critically successful although less adventurous than Apes) we see the real emergence of that Gothic-Depp-Bonham Carter formula. It seems possible to me that Burton felt he had tried his hand at work outside of that warm, cosy belfry but had found it harder than he imagined and so returned to the Gothic fantasies with which he made his name. Fair enough, we might say - if you can continue to adapt stories that are crying out for a Gothic twist and be successful in doing so, then why not? Yet, while The Nightmare Before Christmas was undeniably brilliant and Sweeney Todd was a breath of fresh air in popular cinema - it seems to me that there is something stale about this formula. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, for example, is entertaining but far from ground-breaking. Furthermore, it came as a great surprise to me that Alice and Wonderland was that popular - while the world of Wonderland and its inhabitants seem perfect Burton material, I found it a little lacklustre; lacking that edge that would make it great.


In my opinion, while Burton has a great mind for the weird and wacky - and Depp and Bonham Cater are great at portraying just that - there's got to be somewhere better to apply it than those 'Gothic fantasy-comedies' and remakes of 60's soap opera rip-offs of The Adams Family.


Etep
Images courtest of www.adamsmith.wordpress.com and www.fanpop.com