Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Despite the grim expectations from the story synopsis, the film delivers gore in a surprisingly tasteful way. There are no screaming teenagers running from a lunatic; instead we get a somewhat British blend of satire, slapstick and just "wrong" humor. Although I'm not much of a Johnny Depp fan, I enjoyed his performance as well as Helena Bonham Carter's. Even the portrayal of the common clients was stunning.

Despite being generally familiar with the story, I fell into some traps expecting specific twists, yet something different (and better) being delivered. This is a model of how to do dark humor that filmmakers should and probably will follow. It is most refreshing. Don't read the story and don't read any spoilers until you've seen it.

As it happens more often than not, greatness is relegated to some obscure angle. In a year of brilliant opuses by the Cohen Brothers and PT Anderson, this Tim Burton film shines as the best from every angle. It's not just that Burton creates another superb, dark universe with Dante Ferretti's complicity or that Johnnt Deep breaks new ground, or that Helena Bonham Carter surprises us with a complex, marvelous realistic parody. The film touches visually a very private cord. Ed Wood managed that but Tim Burton with "Sweeny Todd" elevates it to the purest form of art. He will be punished for that, as Ed Wood was in its day. Disappointing grosses in a world that worship grosses will make it appear as a sort of a failure. My advise to you is run to see it wherever you can find it. Try to see it in a big screen with great sound. You will fly and dream and be taken away by the masterful hands of Tim Burton and the glorious faces of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.

Good dark fun.

I knew nothing of this movie except Tim Burton and Johnny Depp had something to do with it, and that, as the executive director put it, there was "lots of blood". I don't think of myself as liking musicals, although I should probably reconsider now.

I had a moment of dread when the movie started and there was a mention of Sacha Baron Cohen being in it. However his performance was in fact quite good. While his acting has a few things in common with his over-the-top Borat character, it somehow fits rather well within the movie.

Some elements of the plot are rather predictable, in a Greek tragedy sort of way, but it doesn't really detract from the movie. We get to enjoy the downward spiral even though we know its shape.

All in all, the movie was awesome, filled with damned and hopeless characters that still made you laugh at every turn.

"At last, my arm is complete again." Sweeney Todd as he admires one of his efficient razors after a long absence.

I'm not sure Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd is "grand," but I'm confident it's in the best Grand Guignol tradition of sensational stage horror given its name from that little theater in early 20th century Paris that specialized in sensationally ghoulish productions. I am also sure that no one in film is better able to play the titular butcher than the shape-shifting, ever-naughty Johnny Depp.

The opening song "No Place Like London" hints to Anglophiles like me that it won't be my usual tour of West End theaters, rather a seedy, dangerous place where Mac the Knife would be more at home. Throughout the musical, Steven Sondheim's lyrics expressively revel in the amoral, throat-slicing world that Sweeney and his adoring meatpie lady, Nellie Lovett (Helena Bonham-Carter), wallow in as he prepares to take revenge on the equally amoral Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), who dispatched Todd to prison early on to get his beautiful young wife. Hence Sweeney's revenge inclination.

Sweeney's lyric best expresses the wildly murderous world, hardly the usual province of musicals: "Alright! You, Sir?/No one's in the chair come on, come on/Sweeney's waiting/I want you bleeders./You sir! Too sir?/Welcome to the grave./I will have vengeance./I will have salvation . . . ." Yes, it's Sleepy-Hollow, Corpse-Bride Tim Burton's movie with blood spouting like red paint from a pressure gun contrasting the somber, almost black and white underside of London. When one of the children bites into a pie with a finger in it (shades of our contemporary law suits!), the audience doesn't even gasp, given the omnipresence of bloody bodies.

There is no more interesting musical this year, even considering the enchanting Once. In the end, it is unsettling, unsavory, and unusual. Burton does better than anyone else in juxtaposing horror with innocence.

After fifteen years in the Australian pokey, barber Johnny Depp (as Benjamin Barker) returns to his nineteenth century Fleet Street, London flat and assumes the name "Sweeney Todd". Wrongly imprisoned, Mr. Depp is in a vengeful mood. He learns his wife has poisoned herself, and left teenage daughter Jayne Wisener (as Johanna) in the clutches of lusty Alan Rickman (as Judge Turpin) and Timothy Spall (as Beadle Bamford). Depp's sailing companion, young Jamie Campbell Bower (as Anthony Hope) hears Ms. Wisener singing, and falls in love at first listen. And, she is similarly smitten.

Meanwhile, acting like "Aladdin Sane", Depp showers himself with the blood of throat-slit victims. His new co-dependent companion, dark-eyed Helena Bonham Carter (as Nellie Lovett), sells meat pies made with the human carcasses Depp provides. "And baby makes three" when Depp and Ms. Bonham Carter "adopt" gin-swigging young teenager Edward "Ed" Sanders (as Tobias "Toby" Ragg), after making tasty mince meat out of his swarthy guardian, Sacha Baron Cohen (as Adolfo Pirelli).

Subtitled "The Demon Barber of Fleet Street", director Tim Burton's "Sweeny Todd" is more horror opera than Broadway musical. The promotional material says it "has been hailed as a masterpiece by critics and audiences everywhere." Now, that's going too far, in this case - but, you know Burton and Depp are going to be attached to something visually arresting, and is certainly so. There is, at least, masterpiece-caliber work from the likes of Colleen Atwood, Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo, and Dariusz Wolski, who will hopefully continue to be seen among the outstanding Burton/Depp crews.

******* Sweeney Todd (12/3/07) Tim Burton ~ Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Jamie Campbell Bower, Ed Sanders