SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (2007) - ****

It must be said that whatever you like his work or not, Johnny Depp is the most fearless actor in Hollywood. This is a man who spent so many years working to hone his acting craft, to earn real respect from the cinema buffs as simply a great performer and not just a movie star.

To risk though his hard-earned mega-movie stardom to tentpole not only a big budget R-rated musical, but to actually sing with his own vocal chords....that's balls. Screw you Will Smith.

Sadly, I think its the fact that Depp is singing why many movie-goers will skip this film, like my Dad. Then again, he was scarred by PAINT YOUR WAGON as a young man, so I can't blame him.

A damn pity since SWEENEY TODD might very well be Depp's greatest performance yet. He consumes wholly the darkness surrounding the broken soul of his wronged-blade swinging hero, and becomes the very essence of Tim Burton's macabre musical opus.

His dead eyes are full of revenge and hatred, and his determination for vengeance knows no limits. His title character probably won't be as celebrated or praised by his fans as say FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS, but this is tour de force bravado that we movie buffs will write endlessly about for years to come.

Then again, anytime Depp works for his cinema soulmate Burton, you expect magic. What surprises me though is that considering the material, I should hate TODD.

It's what I would decry as a "Stop N Go" Musical. You know, where you have dialogue that stops, the people sing and dance, then go back to their serious dialogue, much like random car chases and explosions in bad action movies. Along with the expensive studio sets and this being an adaptation of a popular Broadway work, this is the sort of stiff "showy" movie like I'm allergic to.

Yet Burton makes TODD work because when his characters sing, they aren't singing. They're talking to each other and themselves, speaking of their woe, or expressing pure joy in their wickedness. From Depp to Helena Bonham Carter to the awesomeness that is Alan Rickman, everyone is "talking" without anyone

It's a credit to Burton and scriptwriter John Logan in their re-adjustment and slicing up of Stephen Sondheim's musical to make it work as a film on its own artery merit of organic blood instead of simply another Oscar-Bait adaptation.

To put it another way, I never missed Danny Elfman.

But what makes SWEENEY TODD Burton's best work since ED WOOD is that Burton is in a visual sandbox he loves playing in. He's had fun before, but this time he isn't wasting my time like he did with the misfire BIG FISH.

Within production designer Dante Ferretti's exaggerated chariacture of Dickenson-London, we believe the albino Depp could seemlessly blend within this vile hellhole of inhumanity, that the audience would laugh at him and Carter being out of place on a beautifully lushious beach, and that child abuse is awesome.

The grim and tragic beats of this tale about vengeance going too far work is purely satisfying, but what completes TODD though is its eye-candy of an ending with easily the most frightening shot of 2007. After shutting closed the oven door, Depp's eyes are ablazed in that he is finally complete, with the young boy behind him now wearing the same mask of emotions that grace Depp.

Revenge is indeed a two-way street.

When is this released?

January 25th for the UK.

Not to long for us to wait then....

Thanks,im looking forward to seeing this movie

Nice review, Ronnie! I've probably said it before, but I really love your style of writing - it seems much more "real," and attached to what you're reviewing, coming from a true fan of film...while still maintaining good knowledge and critique.

I really hope to see this soon.

Yeah i'll probably see it when it comes out in the UK.

While I had heard of Sweeney Todd I couldn't tell you the storyline until this film. And even then, I don't know that I'd want to see it.

However, if it werren't for the fact that Depp has impressed the hell out of me with his versatile acting style (Blow, Secret Window, and one I've only seen parts of; Fear & Loathing, not to mention "Pirates", etc), I might not want to see this film. However, just to watch him put himself into the part may well be worth it. I find him an awesome actor.

TIS

I saw the original on Broadway with Len Carou and Angela Landsbury, the revival with Patti Lupone, and now the movie. While A film is toally different than a stage production, I thought Burton and Depp teamed up to do a great job...one of the best films of the year.

I saw it tonight. Didn't like it. I sighed deeply fifteen minutes in and never really got out of the cynical slump after that.

I'm not usually one for attacking specific demographics*, but this film is currently #157 on IMDb's all time best films. Though it will no doubt fizzle off their chart - due to that site's mathematical formulae that help balance fashions out - its current place is discouraging and lamentable. Shame on all who gave it such a high rating.

Burton's new film is in line with his previous few: a smug affair with serious intentions, risible asides and little - if any - worth. What this film has going for it is ultimately marred by its overall mediocrity. The songs are erratic - some are good, some are not (and either way that's down to the original) - but very few have any sort of charm invoked upon them.

Depp's as cardboard as he has ever been, brooding like he did in Donnie Brasco with no real emotion (don't believe the hype, he's an unimpressive, limited actor); Bonham Carter is her typical self, as drained of life and as uncomfortable-looking as she was in Fight Club (though here, husband Burton raises the stakes and our eyebrows with fetishistic attention paid to her corset-forced, ugly cleavage); Rickman's underused, really, and the rest of the cast are smarmy, thin and utterly drowned in the same sugary schtick that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fed us in big portions.

Burton's opening credits are always a joy to behold. While Charlie was obsessive in its lavishly designed chocolate-making, Sweeney Todd takes much pleasure in its thick, syrupy blood - always too carefully scarlet to be really convincing. The artificiality of the blood is telling and refreshing: it offers colourful relief from Burton's washed-out, grim Victorian interiors - always too dark for their own good - and the 18 certificate* is, I suspect, not so much from the graphic depiction of these repetitive, uninventive killings (if only it had half the charm of Ealing's The Ladykillers), but from its apparent relish in them. Indeed, not only is the violence without any sort of moral consequence or unsettling twist, but it makes for a complimentary, sardonic visual rhythm to the music - in the film's most satisfactory sequence, Depp slashes his customers' throats and sends them to the basement below with sickening thuds, where Bonham Carter comes to collect and to cook.

But it has little lasting quality. Burton fails where Baz Lurhmann has always - so far - succeeded. Lurhmann embraced camp theatricality in his Moulin Rouge!, for instance, investing purpose and measure to exhilarating numbers; Burton's film is flat, with little narrative drive and hopeless dead-ends that drain all life out of otherwise bouncy songs. Its visual textures are nothing to shout about, either - but Burton's always been a design freak rather than a visualist.

It's curiously misanthropic, though, and its dark willingness to do away with people is admirable, recalling the aforementioned Ealing at its best (think of Kind Hearts and Coronets' sardonic wit and morbid humour). In its best song, Depp sings "Everybody must die", condemning even both himself and Bonham Carter (who is present). And the film itself certainly does away with a lot of players. But in a final twist, [SPOILERS AHEAD] Burton has the last laugh: the world is doomed, for the film's three most annoying characters (of a film full of them), are the only ones to survive unscathed. [SPOILERS END]

* - IMDb's demographic breakdown, found here, show that while most of its voters were over 18, its highest average ratings came from those under 18. It is, I should highlight again, an 18 certificate film in the UK. (Though it's worth admitting that over a third of the votes come from US members.)

IMDB is a place of trends in terms of popularity, and in stupidity.

I quite enjoyed TODD, but after seeing ONCE.....well, TODD got cut from my Top 10. ONCE is just so much more satisfying, and a great movie.



I've so disagreed with you on many many many movies....but that's the first time in quite awhile that you pulled an Irishman.