Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant, 14 Jul 2009
I think Sweeney Todd is a brilliant film that suits the style of Burton, Depp and Bonham-Carter perfectly.
I have never liked musicals but really enjoyed this and have watched it 2 nights in a row.
I was pleseantly suprised by Johnny Depps singing voice and it just goes to show how brilliant and versatile he is as an actor with another outstanding performance here.
One review said that Bonham-Carter had a passable voice I completely disagree with that her voice is fantastic and perfect for the role. She also had by far the hardest part to sing if you ask any music expert. She always goes unappreciated but Bonham-Carter is a wonderful actress and that was shown in this film where she was the equal if not better than Depp.
There where also some brilliant support roles particularly Timothy Spall, Alan Rickman and Sacha Baron-Cohan.
A fantastic film definite watch for musical lovers, Burton lovers, Depp and Bonham-Carter Fans and anyone who likes anything dark and gory.
Fantastic.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
On The Other Hand, 13 Feb 2009
I'm generally not that keen on reviewing things since everything seems to already have been said by the time I get around to watching something but this seems like the exception.
I've persevered with Tim Burton's films for long after they interested me, based on his early gems of Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood so I really wasn't expecting too much from this one.
As you can see by my score, I really got a lot of pleasure out of this and thought it was witty and pretty and darkly sensual in a way that lots of films strive for but never achieve (Burton's included. I'm looking at you Sleepy Hollow).
Beyond the two leads (who I thought were perfectly tragic and disinterested, giving it an understated menace and adding to the humour), the look is beautiful, the killings especially were perfectly nasty in a way you don't expect so much in musicals when you've got a lot of singing and silliness, again adding to the sensual delights on offer. It reminded me of something like American Psycho or Nip/Tuck in that kind of high camp gloss, everything is highly stylised and the blood and gore fit into the look and have a kind of beauty of their own instead of being soley gratutious.
The music too fitted perfectly and the singing voices were perfectly pitched to fit the characters without needing to be showing and evidence of vocal prowess or else jarring "this is a good song" bit. A lot of it reminded me of Scott Walker, that rich, almost tuneless but operatic baritone mingling melancholy and menace.
All this said, I am certainly no musical afficando (I've seen plenty of film versions and a few stage productions but generally modern musicals leave me cold) and knew nothing of this one other than a vague outline of the story of Sweeney Todd. So, I suspect like a lot of things, if you go with an idea and a feel for how you've enjoyed it before, it might well disappoint you in its new form.
To me it seemed fresh and engaging and certainly encouraged me to hunt out other Stephen Sondeheim productions since the dialogue and music meshed very perfectly with Burton's usually kinds of tricks (I think for me he's been lacking a good script for many years and has limitations as a director (or chooser of projects) which have left him in something of a rut.
I am now off to hunt out the soundtrack.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The years have changed him, 6 Jul 2009
Murder. Cannibalism. Death. Obsession. Revenge. Blood. Goth makeup. And lots of razors -- "at last, my arm is complete again!" Sweeney Todd exults.
Somehow it doesn't come as a shock to me that Tim Burton adapted Stephen Sondheim's musical "Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" -- or that he somehow spun it into something so delicious. That dark, grotesque, hilariously melodramatic story is perfectly suited to Burton's style, and Johnny Depp is absolutely stunning as the titular bloody barber.
The malignant Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) lusts after the wife of Benjamin Barker (Depp), so he convicts Barker of a crime he didn't commit, and enfolds his family into his evil hands.
But fifteen years later, the Barker returns to London and sets up a barber shop over Mrs. Lovett's ghastly meat pie store. Of course, he's enraged when he learns that his wife was raped and since poisoned herself, and that his daughter is the ward of the lecherous Judge. Enraged and maddened, Barker renames himself "Sweeney Todd" and vows revenge.
And he finds that he LOVES using his razors for a far bloodier task than shaving. With the help of Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) -- who finds a thrifty use for those bodies -- Todd cuts a bloody swathe through all who have wronged him. And when his daughter is punished for refusing to marry the cruel Judge, Sweeney closes in to get his revenge at last.
There's always been a gothic look to Burton's movies, and he's always dabbled in very twisted, macabre storylines. And he really tops himself with "Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" -- London is painted in black, white and grey, right down to the ghoulish faces of the characters, and their bleak little dens of horror. And songs -- lots of magnificently horrible songs.
But Burton pretty obviously adores the combination of gory grotesquerie and very, very sick humour ("They don't commit sins of the flesh, so it's pretty fresh"). And he doesn't try to make Sweeney or Mrs. Lovett palatable, thankfully. While we sympathize with Sweeney's losses, and the horrors that have changed him into the Demon Barber, you just can't pass over scenes where they sing, "It's man devouring man, my dear!" "Then who are we to deny it in here?"
There are some moments that relieve this gory gothic parade -- there's a sweet love story between Sweeney's daughter and a young sailor. And the plot becomes progressively darker toward the end (yes, it CAN get worse), when the plot throws us some shocking new twists, resulting in a Grecian-tragedy finale soaked in even more gore.
Oh yes, there's blood. Tons of it. It spurts like Monty Python's bloodier sketches, which ends up being more hilarious than yucky -- as is the casual introduction of cannibal meat pies. And there are some spectacularly gross moments, like a finger found in one of the pies.
Burton uses some of his favorite actors in this one, particularly Depp and Bonham-Carter. Depp is THE perfect ideal Sweeney Todd -- his creepy eyes, pallid face and still, almost seductive manner are perfect for the maddened murderous barber. He goes through the movie slashing his razors at the world, and injects a real creepiness into scenes like Sweeney cooing at his "friends."
While she's only a passable singer, Bonham-Carter is eerily wholehearted as Todd's equally amoral partner-in-crime, who is quite happy to assist him.... and make tastier pies in the process. Rickman is wonderfully loathsome as the Judge, and Sacha Baron Cohen has a small but priceless role as Pirello, a huckster acquaintance of Todd's who starts causing trouble. He really steals his scenes.
Most directors would have prettified, sanitized and defanged the grotesque "Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," but Tim Burton and Johnny Depp revel in the gore and madness. Astoundingly great.
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