Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
It's that time of the year again-and it seems to come around the same week every December. The streets get colder, snow begins to fall, really good movies come out, and then of course-the movie musical of the year. This time every year has brought upon since films as "Chicago," "The Producers," and "Dreamgirls,"-some of them bigger than others, but almost all of them bringing in some kind of buzz in the weeks leading up to them. This year we get "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," based off the Broadway musical by Steven Sodheim. Originally going to be directed by "American Beauty" helming Sam Mendes, "Sweeney Todd" eventually fell into the hands of Tim Burton, who does seem right for the material given his past. Burton casted his five time (and now six time) vet, Johnny Depp and his wife Helena Bonham Carter, who both give very good performances despite the fact that this isn't much of a stretch for anybody involved.
Depp plays Benjamin Barker, who was arrested, banished, and taken away from his wife and baby daughter by the evil Judge Turpin (played by Alan Rickman), Barker returns (now dubbed Sweeney Todd) with revenge in his mind. After learning from the dark and mysterious, yet ever hopeful, Ms. Lovett (the worst pie-maker in all of London), that his wife killed herself and his daughter has been adopted by the judge, Sweeney is prepared to do anything for revenge. Once a barber he returns to the trade in the room above Ms. Lovett's business, and their partnership reaches extremely high bloody results.
My only real connection with the story of "Sweeney Todd" comes from a version in 1936 starring Tod Slaughter-which is different in many ways. Sweeney's bloodbath is one of revenge in this film, while in the other it was about their money. There is also no love story (however bizarre and weird the love story is in this version), and instead Ms. Lovett is a much older woman. It's a fairly good film, but doesn't match the visuals here. In fact my favorite part about this film is the visuals, and every single shot in this movie is completely and utterly breathtaking. With cinematography by Dariusz Wolski, who honestly doesn't have the best resume in the business, that is certain to get an Oscar nomination, the seedy blue and gray tinted London looks at its best here-especially with the massive comparisons to the lighter and colorful looks in Ms. Lovett's extended dream sequence (one of the funniest moments in the movie). And however violent the movie is, Burton does a good job at mixing his horror story with some dark comedy-and even all of the death scenes themselves still manage to be very funny.
The movie is not without its flaws. Depp and Carter don't exactly have the best singing voices, but they do somehow mesh with their rather offbeat characters they are playing. The first hour, mostly during the introductions of all of the characters-their motives, their relationships to each other, etc-are not exactly handled as good as I had hoped. The first half of this movie does tend to drag, and I was outside of the the action for so long before things started to peak my interest. The acting from Depp and Carter is as good as they allow it to be-which basically means that they are playing variations of characters that they have played several times before. I have never exactly been a huge fan of Johnny Depp, mainly because while several of his fans claim that he is always playing some brand new part, and has variety more than any actor out there, I just see him constantly playing some crazy and vibrantly colorful person-a crazy writer, a crazy pirate, and even a crazy candy bar maker-it all just seems to be the same. I felt that Burton's best film was "Big Fish," which was the first movie that was a little different from his normal route, but at the same time there is this obviously feeling where you just know t hat its a Burton product. And Carter-who I do enjoy in everything I see her in-is always a rather wacky person, once again not a stretch. But if you can look past the rather sometimes phoned in work by the three leads (I am counting Burton as a lead in this case), than you will get more enjoyment from this movie than I did. It is a good movie-and well worth seeing on the big screen to see the visuals in the way they were meant to-but phrases like "best movie of the year" or "masterpiece" need not apply here. It's a rather strong piece of work, but not nearly Burton's best, or the best of anybody involved.
"Sweeney Todd" is out there in several theatres around the country, and it will be getting a larger release on January 11th. It should hold out well into the new year as the award season continues.
Final Grade
"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"-*** of ****.
Depp plays Benjamin Barker, who was arrested, banished, and taken away from his wife and baby daughter by the evil Judge Turpin (played by Alan Rickman), Barker returns (now dubbed Sweeney Todd) with revenge in his mind. After learning from the dark and mysterious, yet ever hopeful, Ms. Lovett (the worst pie-maker in all of London), that his wife killed herself and his daughter has been adopted by the judge, Sweeney is prepared to do anything for revenge. Once a barber he returns to the trade in the room above Ms. Lovett's business, and their partnership reaches extremely high bloody results.
My only real connection with the story of "Sweeney Todd" comes from a version in 1936 starring Tod Slaughter-which is different in many ways. Sweeney's bloodbath is one of revenge in this film, while in the other it was about their money. There is also no love story (however bizarre and weird the love story is in this version), and instead Ms. Lovett is a much older woman. It's a fairly good film, but doesn't match the visuals here. In fact my favorite part about this film is the visuals, and every single shot in this movie is completely and utterly breathtaking. With cinematography by Dariusz Wolski, who honestly doesn't have the best resume in the business, that is certain to get an Oscar nomination, the seedy blue and gray tinted London looks at its best here-especially with the massive comparisons to the lighter and colorful looks in Ms. Lovett's extended dream sequence (one of the funniest moments in the movie). And however violent the movie is, Burton does a good job at mixing his horror story with some dark comedy-and even all of the death scenes themselves still manage to be very funny.
The movie is not without its flaws. Depp and Carter don't exactly have the best singing voices, but they do somehow mesh with their rather offbeat characters they are playing. The first hour, mostly during the introductions of all of the characters-their motives, their relationships to each other, etc-are not exactly handled as good as I had hoped. The first half of this movie does tend to drag, and I was outside of the the action for so long before things started to peak my interest. The acting from Depp and Carter is as good as they allow it to be-which basically means that they are playing variations of characters that they have played several times before. I have never exactly been a huge fan of Johnny Depp, mainly because while several of his fans claim that he is always playing some brand new part, and has variety more than any actor out there, I just see him constantly playing some crazy and vibrantly colorful person-a crazy writer, a crazy pirate, and even a crazy candy bar maker-it all just seems to be the same. I felt that Burton's best film was "Big Fish," which was the first movie that was a little different from his normal route, but at the same time there is this obviously feeling where you just know t hat its a Burton product. And Carter-who I do enjoy in everything I see her in-is always a rather wacky person, once again not a stretch. But if you can look past the rather sometimes phoned in work by the three leads (I am counting Burton as a lead in this case), than you will get more enjoyment from this movie than I did. It is a good movie-and well worth seeing on the big screen to see the visuals in the way they were meant to-but phrases like "best movie of the year" or "masterpiece" need not apply here. It's a rather strong piece of work, but not nearly Burton's best, or the best of anybody involved.
"Sweeney Todd" is out there in several theatres around the country, and it will be getting a larger release on January 11th. It should hold out well into the new year as the award season continues.
Final Grade
"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"-*** of ****.
posted by Eric at
1:36 PM
2 Comments:
i just saw this today and have to agree with you. i've, too, never jumped on the depp bandwagon and don't get it. at one point, i wasn't even sure he was american because lately he's been sporting an accent frequently. and carter and the visuals were some of the better parts of this movie. good write-up, of course i agree with you, so...yeah, i probably wouldn't say otherwise.
My husband and i have always been Burton fans .....even before we had childern...But our daughter from a very young age just loved Beetal Juice...then Sleepy Hallow....Pee Wees big adventure and so on ....at first we thought she liked horror movies until we relized she loved Tim Burton too.......we went to see Sweeny Todd on Christmas Eve and as soon as we got home we were DL the sound track ...and loving all the things we could remember....I too thought it was one of the most beautiful movies I have seen in a long time...and since Jump street I am a fan of Depp....He did die a great death in Nightmare on Elm St.....whats not to love....Ben Barker is not so far a streach for his later career I agree but there was a time when he was more creative with his role picking...I still think he's great and she .....ah she is my corpse bride....
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