Collaborators is a celebration of a number of the greatest pairings in leisure. From administrators and actors that labored collectively to create classics to sport studios that discovered success with a particular writer, these collaborations are beloved because of each side bringing out the perfect in one another.
Few Hollywood collaborations produce the success achieved by the big selection of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp films. Thus far, the pair have teamed up on eight movies, usually with great outcomes. Whereas we’ll possible see Depp hooked up to a different of Burton’s quirky adventures down the road, we thought it’d be enjoyable to rank their collaborations from worst to greatest.
Take a gander on the listing under of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp films ranked from worst to greatest, after which tell us your most popular order within the feedback part.
8. Alice in Wonderland (2010)
I’m not one to name something horrible, however Alice in Wonderland possesses few redeeming qualities past Mia Wasikowska’s star-making flip within the lead function. Burton takes a swing with CGI and captures an modern picture right here and there. Principally, Alice appears pretend — a cacophony of random concepts tossed on the display screen with all of the grace of a 3rd grader studying to finger paint for the primary time.
There’s little pleasure past the terrific solid, specifically Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Alan Rickman, and Crispin Glover. You may inform Burton had full reign on this one and didn’t know when to cease, which is the one clarification for the surplus, together with the famed Futterwacken dance. A minimum of Elfman’s rating packs a punch and works extra time to information the image throughout the end line.
7. Darkish Shadows (2012)
Ah, Darkish Shadows. What ought to have been an ideal marriage of director and content material one way or the other resulted in an entire mess with few redeeming qualities. Primarily based on the obscure Sixties TV collection of the identical title, Darkish Shadows wastes its incredible ensemble on dumb jokes and drained pratfalls.
Depp stands out as Barnabas, a vampire making an attempt to reconcile together with his household. Eva Inexperienced ramps up the sexuality and runs away with the present as Angelique, a witch who lusts after Depp’s character, whereas a powerful supporting solid, specifically Helena Bonham Carter, Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Bella Heathcote, do their greatest in underwritten roles.
Burton leans on his standard bag of visible prospers with pleasing outcomes. Nonetheless, he by no means finds something fascinating to do with this odd assortment of misfits, leading to a hole mess caught someplace between Mars Assaults! and Sleepy Hole.
Darkish Shadows is watchable however in the end a number of notches under Burton and Depp’s greatest work. The truth is, it could be higher to skip the movie altogether and simply tune into Burton’s far superior TV collection Wednesday, a superior mixture of gothic horror and comedy.
6. Charlie and the Chocolate Manufacturing facility (2005)
The hype for Charlie and the Chocolate Manufacturing facility was actual. Following that goofy teaser that gave us a peak of Depp’s deranged Willy Wonka, adopted by the immortal phrases “A Tim Burton Movie,” audiences flocked to the household journey hoping to get pleasure from a darkly humorous, whimsical expertise within the vein of Batman Returns and/or Edward Scissorhands.
Whereas Charlie and the Chocolate Manufacturing facility delivers eye-popping visuals, nothing else actually works. Together with Depp’s weird Willy Wonka, who lacks the appeal and sardonic nature of Gene Wilder’s interpretation and performs extra like a nightmare model of Michael Jackson than a beloved proprietor of a chocolate manufacturing unit.
Charlie has moments — “The whole lot on this room is edible. I’m edible. However that’s known as cannibalism, my expensive kids, and is frowned upon in most societies.” — however by no means totally justifies its existence. Don’t fear, Hollywood is giving Roald Dahl’s novel one other go quickly with Timothée Chalamet.
5. Sleepy Hole (1999)
Sometimes thrilling however frustratingly generic, Sleepy Hole begins with a bang and goes out with a whimper. Depp stars as Ichabod Crane, a 1799 detective obsessive about scientific strategies who journeys to the spooky city of Sleepy Hole to analyze a collection of grotesque murders regarded as dedicated by a headless ghost. Crane’s investigations result in a sinister cover-up way more important than he may have imagined.
Sleepy Hole’s set design and artwork route are top-notch, as is Danny Elfman’s majestic rating. Depp delivers one in all his greatest performances as Crane, a person who rises to the problem however isn’t past fainting whereas performing his civic responsibility — he’s equal elements Angela Lansbury from Homicide, She Wrote and Don Knotts from The Ghost and Mr. Rooster.
Different positives embody Christopher Walken, who performs the headless horseman like a deranged lunatic, Christina Ricci as Katrina, and a gifted supporting solid of vets led by Michael Gambon. A couple of set items strike a nerve, and some delicate nods to the well-known Forties Disney cartoon are amusing.
Sadly, the script by Seven scribe Andrew Kevin Walker fails to reside as much as its intelligent premise and solely produces a number of surprises. The plot usually looks like an adult-oriented episode of Scooby-Doo, right down to the dangerous man’s climactic long-winded clarification. Reasonably than go-for-broke, Burton ends his movie on a generic chase sequence that feels extra compulsory than needed.
It’s honest to say Sleepy Hole does its job and entertains in spades, primarily attributable to Depp’s efficiency and Burton’s unbelievable visuals. Contemplating the expertise concerned, nevertheless, this could have been a lot extra.
4. Corpse Bride (2005)
Corpse Bride is a beautiful stop-motion journey with pleasant characters, fabulous designs, and loads of creativeness to spare. Depp performs Victor Van Dort, a younger man who bungles a marriage, rushes out to the woods, and by accident raises the spirit of a useless lady. Collectively, the pair rush off to the land of the useless, a universe bursting with shade and radiance — in comparison with the world of the residing, right here depicted as a colorless, lonely place of darkish blues and greys — to get pleasure from their unintended relationship.
What’s stunning about Corpse Bride is how full of life it’s. Whereas drenched in macabre, this can be a surprisingly vibrant affair with pleasant tunes (courtesy of Danny Elfman), snappy dialogue, and an abundance of coronary heart. There’s nothing right here you haven’t seen earlier than — visible or storywise — however Burton coats every scene, line of dialogue, and tune with an infectious quirky appeal; it’s exhausting to not fall below the Bride’s spell.
Pleasant, enchanting, bizarre, and surprisingly emotional, Corpse Bride represents the perfect of Tim Burton.
3. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Edward Scissorhands works so nicely for a lot of its runtime that it’s a disgrace when the image falls to items in its third act. Burton’s movie, his first actually Tim Burton-y effort, begins as a whimsical story filled with light humor and unusual however lovable characters, then (for no matter cause) spirals into darkness and ends on a bittersweet be aware that undermines all that got here earlier than.
The ending isn’t horrible, simply routine.
Edward Scissorhands works greatest as an exploration of on a regular basis life and all of its redundancies. Right here we now have neighborhoods painted in lavish pastels, populated by bored housewives and indifferent husbands. No one questions why a darkish citadel lingers on the finish of the road till an Avon salesman (Diane Wiest) dares to interrupt the routine and cross its rusted gates. There she finds Edward, a boy delivered to life by a lonely inventor (Vincent Worth), who died earlier than he may full his creation. As such, Edward has scissors for his arms, a deformity that originally revitalizes the locals, who flock to take a peek at his immense skills.
Sadly, the neighborhood tires of Edward’s skills, culminating in a fairly mean-spirited third act that sees our hero banished and forgotten by all however the love of his life, Kim (Winona Ryder).
Think about if Edward attained actual arms and succumbed to extraordinary life, the place he turns into simply one other man in one other suburban city? On my first watch, that’s the place I anticipated the image to go. As an alternative, Burton opts for a storybook ending that makes little sense however no less than supplies composer Danny Elfman loads of alternative to spin his unimaginable operatic rating.
Burton deserves loads of reward for his efforts and definitely delivers an authentic movement image bursting with charming concepts. Performances are sound. Depp brings heat and humor to Edward in order that we love and pity him equally. Alan Arkin is excellent as a father-knows-best sort who speaks in cliches however provides nothing of worth to anybody, whereas Ryder is charming as a teenage woman who’s each frightened and intrigued by Edward’s darkish spell.
I like Edward Scissorhands greater than I find it irresistible, however nonetheless rank the image excessive on the listing of Burton/Depp collaborations, if just for its originality and sheer ambition.
2. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Road (2007)
I’m not a lot for musicals, however Sweeney Todd delivers. That is the story of a begrudged barber, Benjamin Barker (performed by Depp), who units out to homicide Choose Turpin (Alan Rickman), the person who ruined his life. What follows is a collection of grisly murders set amidst lavish musical numbers expertly delivered to life by Burton’s elegant route and a few actually unimaginable visuals.
That is one darkish movie, and it’s all the higher for it. Burton doesn’t shrink back from the gore or placate the violence as he did in Sleepy Hole. In Sweeney Todd, dangerous individuals do dangerous issues with out regret and solely understand the error of their methods when it’s too late for reconciliation — revenge has by no means been sweeter.
Don’t misunderstand: Sweeney Todd isn’t the kind of movie you plop in on a random Saturday afternoon. It’s grotesque, violent, and bloody as Hell. The tunes aren’t the kind you stroll away blissfully buzzing, and one gained’t stroll away with pleased ideas. Right here we now have a movie that takes audiences straight to Hell. So whereas a morsel of redemption happens within the operatic closing moments, the journey to salvation is steeped in horror. Burton crafts the darkest imagery of his profession, main to at least one hell of an expertise which may greatest be described as a nightmare.
Criminally underrated.
1. Ed Wooden (1994)
Probably the most profitable collaboration between Depp and Burton arrived in 1994’s Ed Wooden, a darkish (although usually hilarious) true-life story about, nicely, Ed Wooden — the enduring director who crafted a few of Hollywood’s largest stinkers.
For these unaware — and there are a number of, in line with the movie’s field workplace receipts — Edward Davis Wooden, Jr. is acknowledged for classics akin to Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster, Night time of the Ghouls, and Plan 9 from Outer House, usually seen because the worst movie ever made. Burton chronicles Wooden’s early struggles as an aspiring director whose love for movement photos is rivaled solely by his affinity for ladies’s clothes. He’s a peculiar lad but in addition filled with power and spirit, sufficient no less than to lure iconic actor Bela Lugosi out of compelled retirement for one final go at fame and fortune.
As performed by Depp, Wooden is a lovable loser, a person so enraptured by the glitz and glamor of Tinseltown that he fails to see his weaknesses as a filmmaker. He fails to note when cheaply designed props fall over on his units and ignores apparent gaffs in his photos, akin to when a scene out of the blue shifts from evening to day between pictures. He simply desires to make films, you see? And was no less than lucky sufficient to reside a model of his dream for a time earlier than alcohol and despair led to his early loss of life.
Burton doesn’t decide the person or any of his unusual cohorts — performed by Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones, and Invoice Murray, amongst others. The truth is, he empathizes with them. There’s a scene the place his long-suffering girlfriend stumbles into a celebration filled with these B-movie misfits and shouts, “You’re losing your life making shit! These films are horrible!” Wooden, wearing drag and surrounded by useless meat, is perplexed by her feedback — he doesn’t see what she does. Later, he bumps into Orson Welles at a bar, who tells him to not give up his imaginative and prescient to anybody. Emboldened, Wooden completes his masterpiece — Plan 9 from Outer House — and, within the movie’s closing moments, states unironically: “That is the one I might be remembered for.”
Ed Wooden tells the story of a flawed man with a lust for all times and films whose skills by no means matched his ambition. Burton paints his life as an journey coated with darker textures Ed doesn’t appear (or need) to understand. For Ed, it’s at all times in regards to the subsequent screenplay, the subsequent movie … he’s Burton’s most unconventional hero. Ed Wooden is a celebration of the person’s life and legacy and a tragic story of an outsider who crashed and burned en path to fulfilling his dream.