Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)

Johnny Depp certainly got himself another hit on his hands with this one, much to the delight of his considerable fan club and every other Broadway baby out there. While I don't know if Johnny Depp is the world's greatest singer (he won't be doing opera anytime soon) he proves that he can carry a tune well enough to make this a musical worth seeing, and fans of prior versions of the show should be pleased. Helena Bonham Carter keeps up her pace as his consort with that flair of hers we all know and love.

But it ain't just Mr. Depp and Ms. Carter. Even without him and his gifts "Sweeny Todd" is art, a sensitive version of the old legend of the killer that speaks of his personal tragedy even as it recognizes his darker and, dare I say, it comedy. Simply put, "Sweeny Todd" is a great story in every sense of the word. It has it all: comedy, tragedy, romance, cannibalism. What more do you need? Visually it is a gem, from the river of blood that opens it to the scenes that vary between the streets of London and the cramped spaces of the homes and pie shops. It does not sweep broadly, but pulls you into claustrophobic conditions that force you to examine the characters. Every one of them is real. Every one of them, good or evil, earns your appreciation in a character-driven story that refuses to be two-dimensional.

This is not about a barber that kills people. This is about what people will do when they are desperate in their passions of love and hate. We see goodness, innocence, love. We see revenge, evil, pain. We see everything in between, serious and funny alike.

The songs are incredible and do their part to move the story along in their lyrics of passion and black humor.

Isn't it great that musicals are back in vogue?

The desaturated Gothic graphics are stunning. Which they should be, since Tim Burton's been honing his ability to portray them for fifteen years. Perhaps he should try sepia tones instead of desaturation for his next film.

The performances were good - but there were two tragic flaws that kept this from being a good film. The first was the plotting. Although this is supposedly a story about Mr. Todd, his character is stagnant, an iconic force of revenge. All of his change has already taken place offstage. The most change he goes from is "Kill a few select people" to "kill everyone" - and that change happens in a most contrived and unsatisfying way. Helena Bonham Carter's character, however, does change - but her storyline, her conflicts are glossed over to provide more time for the supposedly "main" storyline. This would have been a much better story had it been told from her character's viewpoint, centering on her conflicts and internal struggles on what - and whom - to serve.

The second flaw is, unfortunately, the main trope of the story. The songs. With only two exceptions - both duets involving Helena Bonham Carter's character - the songs do little to advance the story or show character. They are set pieces that simply exist for thier own sake. This would be forgivable if they were memorable - but they're not. Every line - sung or not - must advance the plot or show character. Too many lines - both sung and not - are instead included simply to exist, and it shows.

In short, this film adaptation of the musical would have been a hundredfold better had it shed the music and used that time to instead explore the characters within it. Would it still be an adaptation of the musical? Perhaps not, but it would have been a lot better story.

I'm a huge Johnny Depp fan & I had to replace my old copy of Sweeney Todd. So I purchased a new copy. In the description it said DVD was brand new & when I recieved the DVD it was in wrap but the DVD it self had scratches. When I played the DVD it skipped about three times. Thank God I have a DVD scratch cleaner if not I would have sent it back. Shipping was very fast also.

GRUESOMELY BEAUTIFUL. . .This movie is gruesomely beautiful. The storyline is bizarre, the scenes grotesque, the costuming and make-up are magnificently dark, the score is morbidly complex, the actors are macabre-ly on the money. These elements combined to result in a work of art that is gruesomely beautiful.

I really enjoyed this at the movies, and when I bought the English Blu-ray and watched it again, with 2 exceptions.

First, the movie itself (SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT!), if only the daughter had lifted the lid and seen Todd kill the mother the despair would have been even greater - not for her, but for Sweeney. If he knew his beloved had seen him commit the act the tragedy would have been even more intense. (END SPOILER) But that's probably a personal and subjective thing, and not why I didn't mark it higher.

Secondly, the Blu-ray version of the movie. The reason I only gave this 2 stars is because if it's the same as the English Blu-ray, you may want to save your money, because the heinous digital noise reduction rears its ugly head again. DNR is used to smooth out film grain and artefacts and must be used incredibly judiciously. There seems to be a LOT of ignorance around here about film grain as opposed to video noise, and people complaining wrongheadedly about things looking 'clean' and 'HD'. Let me explain:

Visuals are obviously very important to Burton and an integral part of his storytelling. While film stocks have been getting more refined over the last hundred years many directors use higher amounts of grain INTENTIONALLY as a tonal element to literally add 'grit', roughness and a patina of texture to the visuals. It is used to enhance the mood of the movie, and when used by a visually competent director is done with purpose to help sell the tone.

The disgusting thing that happened here however is not as pervasive as the abominable PATTON, but even MORE wrongheaded. O.K., so DNR and edge 'enhancement' (ha!) are used to 'clean up' an image (only stuff shot digitally or cg animated films will be completely without grain) but when they get rid of that grain, they obviously obliterate fine detail - so much for 'high-def'! What happened on Todd, a film where obvious grain which is part of the actual structure of the film stock NOT added on top and therefore inextricable from the detail of the picture (without manually supervised frame-by frame instructions), was that they used the plasticising DNR on the faces of Depp and Carter - but ONLY under the eyes and around the nose and cheeks! Not only that but after obliterating the lines there, they didn't even bother to match the film gain in the rest of the plate back on top! So what you get is a horrible smeary plasticy mess. Which sort of defeats the whole purpose of the film in setting a grimy, lined and depressing world of despair and bloody revenge! They're SUPPOSED to be cracked and worn, literally and figuratively!

Usually I'm annoyed at people who mark a movie down because it was "too dark" or some technical reason apart from the actual story and worth of the movie itself. Here however I think I'm justified as whatever marketing moron approved it - probably the same sort that still puts out pan-and-scan for "Concerned Disney Christian Mothers' Group" types that think for some reason the black bits are put "over the top of the picture" (one question - why would they?!) - obviously didn't realise that he or she wasn't SUPPOSED to make the stars look pretty and unlined. Did they not noticed the black bags under the eyes? The ghostly makeup? The reason that these actors took the roles in the first place??? It wasn't done to Alan Rickman!

'Cleaning them up" in such a half-finished way or at all subverts the point of the story and the characters! The promise of HD is that we get as perfect a simulation of the theatrical print as possible. NOT to make it look like a video sports event. It's like the fools working at big stores who turn on the 100/120hz scanning on the HDTVs because it's so high-tech and smooth - that's meant for video-based sporting events (and text)! There's a special mode on ALL these sets to display films in their originally projected 24 frames a second. But they do the 120hz thing because it's 'slick' and 'hd'. Same sort of wrongheadedness as this slathering of DNR on Sweeney Todd. It's all about the original intent.

Lift your game, Dreamworks. I'm going to see about a refund on mine - or whether they'll put out a decent update like they did with Fifth Element.

Sorry for the massive post everyone, but this is the stupidest thing I've seen in quite a while. If you're the type who doesn't notice fine detail stuff, DON'T bother with the HD version of this. It's an insult to Burton, Depp, Carter and all who made the film.