Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

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Shadow Watcher
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Filled with the color red, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET was the perfect "Christmas movie"...even if the "red" was blood. Gushers and gushers of blood.

I'm joking, of course.

I think the fact that a picture whose "hero" is a serial killer and involves cannibalism was released into theaters on Christmas week of 2007 is rather ludicrous. Certainly Halloween would have been more appropriate. But, that's a discussion for another day.

Directed by Tim Burton in a dark style reminiscent of his equally excellent SLEEPY HOLLOW, SWEENEY TODD features a bleak, almost colorless production design in the film that is absolutely mesmerizing. Indeed, as previously stated, the only prominent color is red.

The movie won the Academy Award for its Art Direction.

Johnny Depp and Helen Bonham Carter are superb in the two leading roles, and Stephen Sondhiem's music and lyrics are extremely clever, particularly "A Little Priest," Johanna" and "Pretty Women".

The plot, set in London during the early 19th-century, finds barber Sweeney Todd (Depp) returning from prison and exile to seek revenge on the corrupt judge (Alan Rickman) who framed him so that he could steal his wife. Todd is helped by Mrs. Lovett (Carter), who owns a bake shop and makes "the worst pies in London".

While awaiting an opportunity give the judge a very "close shave," Todd and Mrs. Lovett devise a plan whereby he will slice the throats of his unsuspecting customers and she will turn their bodies into meat pies.

Timothy Spall and Sacha Baron Cohen are fine in two of the movie's key villainous roles, as is Ed Sanders, the boy who plays "Toby". He is a terrific performer.

Also in the cast are Jamie Campbell Bower, Jayne Wisener and Laura Michelle Kelly.

SWEENEY TODD is not for the faint of heart, but it is a brilliantly executed picture that deserves all the accolades that it received.

The 2-disc "Special Edition" DVD from DreamWorks Home Entertainment has many "Making of" and "Behind the Scenes" featurettes that focus on the various aspects of the production, plus a documentary on the "Real History of Sweeney Todd" and the origins of the stage musical.

© Michael B. Druxman, author of ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

I believe that the book of "Sweeney Todd" is a fine example of the classical tragic plot structure, but with an ingenious twist. Too bad that Tim Burton's interpretation ignored Aristotle's explanation of the obscene - the need for abhorrent events to occur off-stage - and killed the way the tragic plot structure should work.

What makes this musical great is the way the truly evil Sweeney Todd works as the tragic hero, even though he is actually the moral anti-hero. In making the final scene so gross and bloody, Burton steals the viewer's ability to feel compassion for Todd, thus making it impossible to see him as a genuine tragic figure.

Catering to the modern need for detailed "real" gore, Burton chooses to dispel the real heart of this story. We are meant to feel genuine pity for Todd, but can't in this truly obscene interpretation and thus lose the catharsis which is the whole point of tragedy.

This is especially too bad, I think, because everything else about the film is excellent - the cast and their acting, the design, the filming... all amazing. If only I could have felt Todd's tragedy. Sigh.

When I watched Sweeney Todd for the first time I was afraid that I would hate it because of it being a musical but I was completely overwelmed by this magnificent film based on Stephen Sondheim's Broadway masterpiece and for fans of Broadway and Sondheim, it's hard to imagine getting a better adaptation than this. What suprised me even more was that I'm not even a fan of Burton's films. Here Johnny Depp and Tim Burton join forces again to bring this musical thriller alive and in the process Depp give one of his finest performances to date as the evil barber Sweeney Todd a wronged man whose lust for revenge drives him to murder.

I was attracted to it's dark but beautiful story about the return of a barber who wants revenge upon someone, in fact this in my opinion is probaly Depp's best film and character he's ever done before. The gory throat cutting scenes were all suitable and made the movie even darker. The actors all managed to sing their parts beautifully and efficently which made the film even better. The special features are also very rich with detail and entertainment with rehearsals of the singing and also the making of the movie.

The cast is perfect with Johnny Depp who plays Sweeney Todd the villianous barber with Helena Bohen Carter as the loveable Mrs Lovett, Alan Rickman as the evil Judge Turpin, Timothy Spall as Beadle and Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) as a rival barber . All in all this is a classic in the movie industry and defiantly is worth seeing!

I adore Johnny Depp. I watch all of his movies (apart from Ed Wood, I just don't get it, and I hated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and I figured I'd like Sweeney Todd. People I worked with raved about it, but I never got a chance to go see it at the cinema.

The DVD was a reasonable price - not THAT cheap, but not too expensive. But then what do I care, it wasn't actually me who bought it. A nice thought.

Sweeney Todd was completely pointless. The music wasn't in the slightest bit memorable (yet everyone who raved about the movie, raved about the soundtrack). The only thing that was memorable were the various scenes of throat cutting and shaving. From a girl who has a severe phobia of watching guys shave their faces, and can't even watch the razor adverts, it probably wasn't a great idea to watch a movie that predominately features shaving.

The only thing that impressed me about Sweeney Todd was Helena Bonham Carter. It's really the first movie I've seen her in, and she was actually really good - apart from the singing. But it wasn't just her. She wears a lot of black lacy dresses, with lots of cleavage on show to detract from the fact she was actually pregnant for most of filming. (Look out for them actually changing shape!) There's a lot of unrequited love on her part for Sweeney, and she mopes around like a lovesick teenager. Very unnerving from a grown woman.

The plot's very boring, with OTT singing, and lots of scenes where not a lot happens. Sacha Baron Cohen appears, who manages to slip flawlessly from an Italian accent to a cockney accent, but he wasn't a particularly stand out character. The singing was unnecessary, and I simply cannot remember a single song from it.

Don't get me wrong, I love musicals. Grease, Sound of Music, High School Musical, and there's probably a few more. But this just did not happen for me. I was continuously looking at the clock, but time seemed to move shockingly slowly.

Briefly looking at the other reviews on the main page, everyone seems to be raving about this. Did we see a different movie? The dialogue was absolutely terrible, it seemed to be constantly whispered, and I was so close to switching on the subtitles. The musical numbers never seem to really get going or take off. They just plod along, and that's probably why they're so not memorable. Johnny Depp seems to be phoning in his dialogue at all times, and he's so bland in it. I thought he liked playing eccentric characters, not boring ones. And he's done the cockney accent in the Pirates of the Carribbean movies (please no more of those either!), I had to actually tell someone the other night not to speak in that particular accent.

The grand finale fell flat on its gothic face. Not only was it predictable, but it just didn't match the rest of the movie. I can just imagine Burton struggling with the ending, and just deciding to do this to most of the main characters, and to hang with the subplots that are just left hanging.

Sweeney Todd is on a whole, not great. And to top it off, I can only find a couple of reviews that I actually agree with. There's some seriously mad people out there who like this movie. Johnny Depp has gone down in my opinion.

My first thought upon finishing this film was, "how can something so dark and gory be so beautiful?" And it's true, to me at least. This movie is gory and gorgeous at the same time. It draws you in starting with the (rather creative) opening credits. I usually skip through those (who doesn't?), but I didn't this time. I have no idea why people are having problem with the casting, I thought everyone in this film was wonderful. I'm not even a Burton fan, but I thought Sweeney Todd definitely delivered. My only complaint is the ending, it seemed rushed and without much closure.