To be charitable, the first hour of Dark Shadows was terrific. The film opens in 1750 Liverpool, England, as the Collins family, including young Barnabas, departs for the Colonies, landing in Maine and establishing their fortunes as entrepreneurial pioneers. Twenty years later young Barnabas (Depp) is master of his community, a city named Collinsport, and adored by servant and townie alike. Unfortunately, when he falls for servant girl Angelique (Eva Green) but switches his amorous attentions to Josette (Bella Heathcote), Angelique gets mad and as she's a witch, she curses Barnabas, turning him into a vampire. She then buries him alive where he lays undisturbed for almost two centuries, waking up in the Hippie-inspired world of 1972.

Barnabas awakens and returns to Collinwood, the ancestral home, a delightfully creepy run-down 200-room mansion complete with turrets, peculiar sculptures and secret passages. He meets the last of the Collins line: Family matriarch Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer), her dubious brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller), his son David (Gully McGrath) and her daughter Carolyn (Chloë Grace Moretz). Also in residence is Dr. Julia (Helena Bonham Carter), hired to treat David who is ostensibly crazy but actually seems the most sane of everyone in this Adams Family sort of band of oddballs.

The introduction of David's nanny Victoria (Bella Heathcote) and reappearance of the evil Angie (Eva Green) add to the storyline, but when Barnabas and Angie make love in her office, the film falls apart and never recovers. Worse, their love making scene is a disaster of epic weird masochistic proportions as they slam into walls, scratch each other, and turn what could have been creepy interesting into stupid appalling. But that's not the worst scene in the film: there's one later on when Victoria's explaining her childhood that would have fit far better in the torture-porn film Sucker Punch.

By the time the film wraps, there are so many inconsistencies in the story (can Barnabas survive direct sunlight or not?) so many random violent scenes, so much that doesn't really make sense even within the goth soap opera world of Dark Shadows, that most theatergoers seemed glad to see the credits appear. There's a really entertaining film buried inside Dark Shadows, with a delightful performance by Depp, but as is, however, I cannot recommend the film to anyone but the most hardcore Burton fan.

Then came Dead Man's Chest which was mediocre but still enjoyable in that it let us revisit with Captain Sparrow, Orlando Bloom as the rough and ready blacksmith Will Turner and Kiera Knightly as the lovely Elizabeth Swann. With more than a bit of hubris, director Gore Verbinski filmed Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, the third installment, simultaneously, and it showed. The third installment was a chaotic, incomprehensible mess and even the addition of popular action star Yun-Fat Chow as Captain Sao Feng failed to redeem this dismal, poorly performing sequel.

Indeed, Verbinski quit after the first three Pirates films and part four, On Stranger Tides, is directed by Rob Marshall. There are also significant casting changes: Depp is back as Sparrow, but Bloom and Knightly are both notably absent, the latter replaced by the less talented actor Penelope Cruz, who plays Angelica, daughter of dread pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane).

The good news? I enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides much more than I expected. There's a welcome acknowledgement of the importance of storyline, an almost complete lack of the incomprehensible supernatural scenes in At World's End, and a narrative that actually made sense as the film progressed. 

The story is a race to the fabled Fountain of Youth, as originally sought by Spaniard Ponce De Leon two hundred years prior to the narrative time of the film. Sparrow (Depp) ends up shanghaid as part of Blackbeard's crew, while recurring foil Captain Barbarossa (Geoffrey Rush) heads up the English privateer's vessel, guided by Gibbs (Kevin McNally). The Spanish, meanwhile, have also discovered critical clues to the whereabouts of the Fountain and have sent three ships to the New World, seeking to arrive first.

On Stranger Tides is a long film, over two hours, and it drags in spots as the early scenes seem unrelated to the main story but instead an excuse to slip in a few more entertaining action sequences, but it's definitely better then the second and third films and if you're a fan of the original you'll enjoy this fourth installment. 

The story is rather complicated, where beauty Elise Clifton-Ward (Angelina Jolie) is the one connection with the elusive Pearce, who stole $2.3 billion dollars from Brit crime boss Reginald Shaw (Steven Berkoff) and then skipped out on a £744 million dollar back tax bill. Why he owes taxes for money he stole from a mobster isn't explained, but one presumes that he was supposed to declare it on his taxes and, uhm, forgot.

To throw off the Italian Interpol surveillance team - directed at a distance by gawky Scotland Yard Inspector Acheson (Paul Bettany) - Pearce tells Elise to board a train heading to Venice, find someone who is a similar height and weight to him and befriend the man. The surveillance team will then follow the wrong man (shades of Hitchcock's classic "the wrong man" storyline) and she'll be free to meet up with Pearce and resume their romantic relationship.

The slovenly man she picks is Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp), a math teacher from Madison, Wisconsin who is traveling Italy solo. He's a bit of a mess, awkward and clearly uncomfortable in the presence of the dazzling Elise. They trade suggestive banter while on the train and go their separate ways once they arrive in Venice, but Elise pops up again while Frank is clumsily looking at a map and trying to figure out the city.

Their continued interaction doesn't go unnoticed by the surveillance team and Shaw learns about it too, sending in his own goon squad of Russian mobsters to capture Pearce and get his money back. For two billion in stolen funds, however, he seems surprisingly cool: that's a lot of money. The chase is on with both Interpol and the Russians after poor, hapless Frank, believing he's Pearce. But he's just a school teacher...

I have to admit, I found The Tourist an enjoyable escape film and while Depp was surprisingly sloppy, unattractive and unengaging in the film, Jolie was very good with her Sophia Loren-like Italian fashion wardrobe and hairstyle and her "I'm letting you in on a secret" performance. The plot had tons of holes in it, but I expected that and so wasn't too bothered. What was more disappointing was the surprising lack of chemistry between the two stars. I could believe Frank falling for Elisa - a mysterious, beautiful woman with clearly powerful and rich friends - but there was never a moment on screen that explained why she'd even give him the time of day once the initial deception was complete.

That's an intimidating challenge, especially for a director like Tim Burton who generally tackles stories that haven't been shown in film before and can be crafted in his own unique style. Think of A Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish and Mars Attacks!  Prior to this, the most popular story he'd tackled was Willy Wonka, which he twisted unpleasantly with his muse Johnny Depp proving too creepy in the title role.

And so it's with a palpable sense of relief that I can report Alice in Wonderland is terrific. It's the kind of story where Burton's dark vision works perfectly, where the strange, moody and oft-sinister fantasy world Carroll described in the book (and its sequel Through The Looking Glass) can finally be brought to the big screen in glorious 3D.

There are nods to other films -- the opening is very reminiscent of the 3D fly-through of London that opens A Christmas Carol, some scenes look like they're from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and Underland (you read that right, "Wonderland" was a mis-pronunciation by Alice, according to the film) at moments looks an awful lot like the planet Pandora from the blockbuster Avatar -- and the ending is typical clunky Burton, but it's still a fresh and delightful take on the story.

A more accurate title for the film would be "The Imaginarium of Terry Gilliam", because so much of the film takes place in a trippy, surreal world that borrows many story and visual elements from his earlier work. Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is an immortal storyteller who helps keep the universe on track. At one point he explains: "we tell the internal story of the world, without which the universe would cease to exist."  Gilliam is just that sort of storyteller, taking on profound, deep and challenging questions of good and evil, of truth and lies, of real and surreal.

The imaginarium itself is a looking glass, a gateway to another world where your dreams are realized and you can wander through your fantasies and most astonishing wishes. For some people it's a dark place, a spooky forest, while for others it's a children's dream park of candy and rolling green hills. It's also a gateway into Doctor Parnassus' mind and a place where visitors must choose between the path of good and the path of evil, as added by Satan (called "Mr. Nick" and played by Tom Waits).

The film gained much notoriety because gifted young actor Heath Ledger (who plays Tony) died during the production, leaving this as his final work and Gilliam with a half-made movie. Rather than scrap it, however, Ledger's death was woven into the storyline and at various points we see Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell as Tony, within the unreal world of the Imaginarium itself. It works surprisingly well, and when we see these other Tony's doing double-takes at their reflections, we understand the confusion. At one point Tony/Farrell is talking to Valentina (Lily Cole) and she looks at him, puzzled, and asks "Who are you?" to which he answers "use your imagination".

That's a splendid bit of advice for anyone who is going to see this amazing, albeit slightly unpolished gem from Terry Gilliam: to truly appreciate The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, you too will be required to use your imagination, in a way quite unlike just about any other film you'll see this year.

From the first scene, the visual style of Public Enemies was set, and it was gorgeous. In particular, I enjoyed the work of cinematographer Dante Spinotti, who gave the film its sepia palette and a gritty, sporadically neo-realistic feel. Some scenes were stand-outs as beautiful examples of the art of filmmaking, and coupled with a terrific musical score that featured period jazz, I think Public Enemies is one of the best produced films so far this year.

The two leads in the film, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, are two of the most popular leading men in Hollywood. This has its pros and cons, of course: since they are such recognizable faces it can be hard for us as the audience to see the role they're playing, rather than them as a character in the story. To his credit, Depp does splendidly in his role as Public Enemy #1 John Dillinger. Christian Bale doesn't do much at all with his role as FBI agent Melvin Purvis, however, but that's partially because of a weak script.

At 2 hours, 20 minutes, it's also a marathon of gun fights, all too infrequently punctuated with quieter scenes where they plan heists, or when Depp woos the lovely Billie Frechette (played by Marion Cotillard).

It's a good movie. Not a great movie, but a good one.