Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Caveat Emptor: If you are looking for a jazzy, upbeat musical, if you're looking for Gene Kelly to tap dance across the screen, if you're looking for lines of chorus girls in sparkly outfits or a plucky, cock-eyed optimist to belt out her troubles, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a bloody gorefest with a mad killer stalking his victims through shadowy streets, look elsewhere. If musicals annoy or don't make sense to you, look elsewhere. For everyone else, bon apetit.

Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a Gothic musical thriller set in 19th Century London, is a tale of revenge, murder, cannibalism, rape, corruption and madness. It's told through Stephen Sondheim's hyper-intelligent, tongue-in-cheek lyrics and Tim Burton's mad-cap and macabre aesthetic. Burton films Sweeney Todd in an over-the-top stylized manner, reminiscent of the German Expressionist horror movies; with mad angles. The London he creates is a bleak, Dickensian cityscape of skeletal buildings and depressing gray skies that rain dark drops of blood. The characters that inhabit such a city are dark and drab to match their surroundings, or brightly flamboyant in colors as lurid as their characters. If such a visual style sounds almost cartoonish, it is; and it works. For a story as dark and morbid as Sweeney Todd, an unworldly aesthetic is needed to keep the world from resembling our own too closely.

The story is simple and dark as a Grimm's fairy tale. Sweeney Todd was banished to prison by a corrupt judge who lusted after Toddâ(tm)s wife. After twenty years, Todd returns to London to find that his wife is dead and the lecherous judge has adopted his daughter. Bent on revenge, Todd returns to his original home and profession, opening a barbershop in the home of his old neighbor, Mrs. Lovett. But the road to revenge is never straight and when more bodies begin to pile up than were expected, Mrs. Lovett comes up with an ingenious plan to dispose of them and improve her failing meat-pie business at the same time. This grisly tale is told through Sondheim's brilliant songs, sometimes haunting, sometimes hilarious, always memorable. Burton and his cast bring the songs to life remarkably well, particularly Johnny Depp. The slight harshness in Depp's voice conveys the utter despair of the character perfectly. Helena Bonham-Carter is the weakest vocally, but her characterization is superb and outweighs her musical shortcomings.

Sweeney Todd nearly defies classification. No other musical is as grim and macabre; no other musical has such gleefully black humor, and no other musical surpasses its "genre" to be such a haunting story of humanity in an inhumane world.

The back alleys of London have been host to many of the most revered 19th century pieces of literature, spawning some of the greatest stories, protagonists and villians: such as Charles Dickins' "Oliver Twist", H.G. Wells' "the Invisible Man", and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. One of the more underated London-based books "the String of Pearls", or better known to Broadway as Sweeney Todd, has finally joined his brothers of extrodinary literature in the silver screen as the musical "Sweeney Todd- The Demon Barber of Fleet Street".

Todd's tale was one of the biggest broadway bangs when it debut. Keeping with the style of broadway music, Tim Burton recruits the likes of Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman(with Timothy Spall as his servent, go figure) to yodel their tales of triumph and terror with surprising success. The orchastrated score was kept simple, but devistating none the less, all musical numbers where performed to the apex of quality, for both the perfomers and the band. I would expect nothing less, this was an award winning musical after all.

For those who don't know about this hack-n-slash tale, Sweeney Todd(Depp), a gifted barber, arrives in gothic London after serving a false account of rape in labour camp for 15 years. After visiting his old shop, Todd devises a plot with the baker/land lady, Mrs. Lovett(Carter), to dispose of the corrupt Judge Turpin(Rickman) that locked him away, making a healthy deposit of other human casulties to the bake furnace for pies along the way. Many aspects of Todd's and Turpin's characters looked as if they where taken from a Jean ValJean(Les Miserable) personality who's led astray. While in no means the only colors are black and white, but the cobblestone streets are shown in color when speaking of symbolism, in an otherwise opaque color scheme of a movie that just might be considered a greek tragedy.

Sweeney Todd is a flawless film, having beautifully executed acting and song in one swift stroke, becoming a favorite film of mine, and one that should be held in the same high regards as the Penny Dreadful novel and Broadway Musical. The only problem holding it back was a personal nick of mine. Having grown-up on the Harry Potter books and movies, seeing Rickman play as the potions master Snape, now still in character, and now as a singing judge(even though it was a beautiful attempt) just felt a bit corny.
4.5/5

The original 1936 black and white making of this film certainly left something for your imagination and leaves Tim Burton's film in the dust. I'm surprised Johnny Depp fell for the discusting and poor taste of the film's direction and it's too bad Mr. Burton doesn't have the film making skills to leave something for your imagination as the original version. Hitchcock would have directed this movie in a way that would have you leaving the theatre feeling better than then when you arrived, not feeling like you need to take an antacid tablet. Instead Tim goes for the easy. It's amazing how actor's/director's taste have gone downhill. He ruined this film with his Hollywood slasher theme and was a waste of money to see.

Studio: Warner Brothers
Version: U.K / Hong Kong / Region A, B, C
VC-1 BD-50 / Advanced Profile 3
Running time: 1:56:22
Movie size: 29,15 GB
Disc size: 45,58 GB
Total bit rate: 33.40 Mbps
Average video bit rate: 23.83 Mbps
Number of chapters: 24

Dolby TrueHD Audio English xxxx kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz
Dolby Digital Audio German 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz
Dolby Digital Audio Italian 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz

Subtitles: English for the Hearing Impaired / French / German / German for the Hearing Impaired / Italian / Italian for the Hearing Impaired Spanish / Dutch / Chinese / Korean / Spanish / Portuguese / Danish / Finnish / Norwegian / Portuguese / Swedish / French / Japanese [switch Blu-ray menu language to Japanese in your player]

#Featurette-Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd (HD)
#Featurette-Sweeney Todd Is Alive: The Real History Of The Demon Barber (HD)
#Featurette-Musical Mayhem: Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (HD)
#Featurette-Sweeney's London (HD)
#Featurette-Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition (HD)
#Featurette-Designs For A Demon Barber (HD)
#Featurette-A Bloody Business (HD)
#Featurette-HBO First Look: The Making Of Sweeney Todd (SD)
#Featurette-London Press Conference (SD)
#Featurette-Razor's Refrain (HD)
#Gallery-Photo

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Studio: DreamWorks
Version: U.S.A / Region A, B, C
VC-1 BD-50 / Advanced Profile 3
Running time: 1:56:22
Movie size: 26,24 GB
Disc size: 48,41 GB
Total bit rate: 30.07 Mbps
Average video bit rate: 21.95 Mbps
Number of chapters: 24

Dolby TrueHD Audio English 3494 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 24-bit / 3494kbps (AC3 Core: 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps)
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps

Subtitles: English SDH / English / French / Spanish

#Featurette-Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd (HD)
#Featurette-Sweeney Todd Is Alive: The Real History Of The Demon Barber (HD)
#Featurette-Musical Mayhem: Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (HD)
#Featurette-Sweeney's London (HD)
#Featurette-Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition (HD)
#Featurette-Designs For A Demon Barber (HD)
#Featurette-A Bloody Business (HD)
#Featurette-HBO First Look: The Making Of Sweeney Todd (SD)
#Featurette-London Press Conference (SD)
#Featurette-Razor's Refrain (HD)
#Gallery-Photo
#Moviefone Unscripted with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp (SD)
#Theatrical Trailer (HD)

"Sweeney Todd" is everything you'd expect out of a Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaboration. In order to appreciate this movie, you gotta be not only a fan of musicals, but a fan of dark comedy/drama.

So, if you give this movie a chance and watch it from beginning to end, I'm sure you'll end up being surprised by it and will enjoy your experience. I know I did! At first, I didn't know what to make out of it, but it definitely grows on you!

By the way, the blu-ray, which has already been released overseas, has received rave reviews so the U.S. release should be just as good, if not better. With a high-end, high-def set-up, "Sweeney Todd" is poised to be a top-notch release!