I missed DS in the theater. I'd planned to see it but got cold feet at the last minute. After the DVD release, I found it at a very reasonable price on Amazon, so I decided to complete my DS collection:
Things I liked:
[spoiler]The telescoping of Barn’s curse story.
Michelle Pfeiffer – IMO easily the best thing about the film.
Coming right out with Barn as a vampire and Elizabeth’s reaction/acceptance to it. I found myself imagining Frid and Bennett having this scene.
I actually really liked the idea of Vickie actually being Maggie Evans taking an assumed name, since orphan looking for her parents story was abandoned. It worked for me.
Loved Collinwood (before and after its restoration).
Wasn’t sure about the ending (and it’s always a bit lame to throw in the creaky “instant vampire just drain victim dry” plot (I mean really, if that was all it took, there would be a couple dozen construction worker and hippie vamps running around) but I did feel happy that Barn was finally reunited with Josette.
Christopher Lee!
Nice twist on the cure plot.
I liked that Angelique owned a competing cannery in the present.
Johnny Lee Miller as a really nasty piece of work Roger.
Windcliff!!!
The TV Cast Cameo!!!! Squee![/spoiler]
Things I didn’t like:
[spoiler]The story focused on Barn and Ang to the near total exclusion of all the other characters in the story. The writer seemed to assume no one would be interested in anyone else. This disappointed me.
Carolyn as a werewolf – huh??
HBC as Julia (OMG, did she really give Barn a blow job?!?!). She was okay with what she was given, but unfortunately was rather poorly served with her part in the script.
Despite liking what they did with the concept Vickie/Maggie, she, like Julia got lost in a script too top heavy with Barn and Ang.
The sex scene – ew. Just … ew.
Eva Green as Angelique – badly miscast and poorly acted.
And while on the subject of Angelique – what was the deal with her cracking and literally falling to pieces? I didn’t get that at all.
Depp’s make up, esp. the fingernails.
Most of Barn’s dialogue – the joke got very old, very quickly.
Maggie’s parents sent her off to a sanitarium because she has an imaginary friend? Don’t many kids have imaginary friends at some point in their lives? Didn’t buy that at all.
The final scene, telegraphed by Julia’s fangs during her death scene much earlier in the film, was rather limp. I had actually kept expecting vamp Julia to show up.
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