Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Starring: Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Alan Rickman, Edward Sanders, Timothy SpallDirector: Tim Burton
Studio: Dreamworks Video
MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen, NTSC
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
Running Time: 116 minutes
DVD Release: April 1st 2008
Buy DVD:
DVD Review
Johnny Depp and Tim Burton join forces again in a big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's award-winning musical thriller "Sweeney Todd." Depp stars in the title role as a man unjustly sent to prison who vows revenge, not only for that cruel punishment, but for the devastating consequences of what happened to his wife and daughter. When he returns to reopen his barber shop, Sweeney Todd becomes the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who "shaved the heads of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard from again." Joining Depp is Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney's amorous accomplice, who creates diabolical meat pies. The cast also includes Alan Rickman, who portrays the evil Judge Turpin, who sends Sweeney to prison and Timothy Spall as the Judge's wicked associate Beadle Bamford and Sacha Baron Cohen is a rival barber, the flamboyant Signor Adolfo Pirelli.
User Reviews
A surprise favorite - Rating: 4/5
If I told you years ago that one of my favorite movies of 2007 would be a musical, I probably wouldn't even believe myself. If I told you that musical would be a slasher film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp, I definitely wouldn't believe myself. Oddly enough, that very scenario happened with Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
The film-adapted from the Steven Sondheim play-tells the story of a London barber, wrongfully accused of a fake crime by a corrupt judge out only to steal his beautiful wife. The barber (obviously Depp) spends years in prison, finally escaping and returning to London on a sailing vessel to take his revenge on the judge (Alan Rickman) who ruined his life. He learns upon arrival that the judge essentially killed his wife and stole his daughter to raise as his own, so he'll have hell to pay when Sweeney Todd catches him.
Somehow, he gets mixed up with a very twisted and creepy meatpie maker, and the two begin an odd relationship of running a restaurant and killing people to solve the issue of the meat shortage. Todd slashes and cuts his way through victim after victim, all the while plotting his revenge and dreaming of the day the judge would become one of his creepy pseudo-girlfriend's pies.
The story isn't fantastic, but it's just odd and twisted enough to be catching. Based on an urban legend (which I learned via the special features) it's definitely a unique narrative. What really carries the film outside of Burton's presentation (grim and grey with a splash of blood thrown in) is the job well done by the actors in the movie. None of the main characters in the film (the barber, judge, henchman or pie maker) have a background in theatre or music, yet when it comes time to sing they carry a tune surprisingly well. Mixed in are several actual singers (and Sascha Baron Cohen himself), rounding out the cast in a nice way.
My main issue with the movie is in the songs themselves. While some are fantastic, too often the singing resorts to what I like to call singsong narrative, as characters sing about what they're doing, or sing out normal conversations. There are only two songs in the entire movie which couldn't equally be said as speaking lines, and to me that hurts the musical aspect. If you're going to do a musical, why not go all out and focus on songs rather than just having characters sing instead of speak?
With the two disc special edition, there are plenty of features thrown in on the bonus disc. From the behind the scenes "Making this movie was fun!" reels to interviews, there's a little bit for everyone. The two most memorable pieces are the history of the story in Sweeney Todd and where it came from, and an interview with Sondheim as he explains the process of making the play into the film, and his thoughts on the finished project.
Overall, Sweeney Todd is by no means a perfect movie, but as far as musicals go it's a cut above the rest. (Totally unintentional.) The few real songs are catchy, and the atmosphere and setting of the movie will be in your mind for days. Just don't expect to eat any meatpies once you're done watching.
CONTENT: 4/5
The singing is good, and the film is great from a analytic standpoint. The only weak spots are the utter uselessness of several characters who serve as nothing more than a way to remind us of what Todd's plan is, and the lack of true, authentic songs. Isn't this a musical?
VIDEO: 4.5/5
Love him or hate him, you have to admit that Tim Burton has a style entirely his own, and that comes across brilliantly in Sweeney Todd. Usually with dark movies like this the DVD transfer is filled with grainy blacks or scenes just too dark, but Sweeney Todd is a near perfect transfer of the film, and there are no details lost in even the darkest of scenes.
AUDIO: 3/5
Can Johnny Depp and crew sing? Yes. Fantastic? Not really. Cohen does a great job as the (surprising) competitor barber, and the kid in the movie blows the rest of the cast ouf of the water.
EXTRAS: 2.5/5
There are plenty of them, but for the most part they're highly forgettable. A few gems, but the worthwhile parts could easily have fit on the single disc version. If you absolutely love musicals and want to know everything that goes into making one, you'll find some nice pieces to watch. Otherwise... Not so much.
REPLAY: 2.5/5
Some people can watch this over and over, and listen to the soundtrack on repeat for days. Personally, I can't see myself watching it more than once or twice over a very, very extended period of time. It just doesn't have any scenes or moments which stand up to repeated viewings like other films.
OVERALL: 3.5/5
Sweeney Todd is the best musical I've seen since Little Shop of Horrors, but it's pure rental material. Tim Burton took a nice shot at making the perfect Musical for Guys, but the DVD comes up short in several areas. Kudos for the attempt and for still coming out with a very watchable movie, but it's not quite as entertaining or long lasting as I originally hoped, and the extras in the two-disc special edition are definitely not worth the extra money. If you enjoyed Sweeney Todd or must buy it on DVD for whatever reason, I'd suggest saving your money and just picking up the regular edition.
Dark and fabulous - Rating: 5/5
First, there is a male ballad duet. Do I really need to say more? Johnny Depp makes a wonderful Todd, bringing loads of dark humour to this film. Bonham Carter was a suprise joy and Alan Rickman as Jude Turpin is perfect as usual (but I love him so don't take my word for it). Pirelli makes me crack up every time. I'm not fond of the young lad as Anthony, he seemed more like a creeper. Or of the music they cut. Yes, some was needed but the title song? Really? But did I mention there was a male ballad duet?
A gore and defiant new aproach to a musical - Rating: 4/5
Sweeney Todd is back, and this time on the big screen.
This is definately not a movie for the faint-hearted. If you are expecting a classic musical with happy songs and joyful feelings, this is not the movie for you. In this adaptation of the musical Sweeny Todd loses all the subtly(¿?) the play has on stage.
This is a very good and smart production that uses the weaknesses of the actors into achieving something good, (like the uneducated voice of Mr. Depp making the character more believable).
The whole thing feels so surreal and cruel it gives you the feeling of the character's madness and pain after the first minutes.
I think some scenes were morbidly added to cause some of the audience to look away off the screen, and were unnecesary, but if you enjoy gore, you'll enjoy some of the cracking sounds.
The talent selection was good, but makes me wonder if some of the actors were put there just because recent success on their careers, or they'd really fit the character, specially the young ones which were very dull and unappealing, you just can't wait for their scenes to be over.
A good job by the Dark Duo (Burton&Depp)
Fast, faster and fastest (is that a word?) - Rating: 5/5
This movie and the music therein is soooooo good. I highly recommend this seller, too. They were super cool and groovy!
Not for the Squeamish - Rating: 4/5
Not to everyone's taste - especially if you are squeamish - is this Grand Guignol song-story of revenge, murder and the worst meat-pies in London, splashed with blood the color of Chanel lipstick and dark humor. In fact the humor is pitch black, only slightly darker than grim and grimy London in some slightly pre-Victorian age. What Tim Burton has made of it may not be quite what this revengers' tragedy was on stage and at full length. But it is original and lives up to what we have come to expect of any collaboration between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp... even if (as has been noted in other reviews) a large portion of Stephen Sondheim's literate and witty lyrical numbers were sacrificed to the demands of a movie with a running time of about half the length of the full stage production.
The plot is whisper-thin, an urban legend or a melancholy ballad about a young man who once had a happy home, with a beautiful wife and a baby daughter. But a wicked and corrupt judge sentences him on false charges to transportation to Australia, and when he returns fifteen years later, it appears that his wife is dead, and his daughter is the ward of the judge. Set on revenge, he sets up shop as a barber in his old home, upstairs from the cheerfully larcenous Mrs. Lovett. There is a small sub-plot, regarding his daughter Joanna, kept captive by the wicked judge - and a young sailor and shipboard comrade of Sweeney Todd's - but mostly it is about Sweeney Todd's implacable quest for vengeance. The bodies pile up through-out, dumped through a trapdoor into the cellar and efficiently transformed into meat pies by Mrs. Lovett... and there you have the most of it; almost too Edward Gorey-comical to be a horror movie, but almost too gory to fit into the musical comedy bracket. I would not allow pre-teens to watch this, by the way; it's fairly guaranteed to be productive of screaming nightmares for those children sensitive to video violence.
Of the extras included on this disc, the most interesting of them was an examination of the origins of the `Sweeney Todd - Demon Barber of Fleet Street'; it appears that he was an urban legend, a creation of a writer for the most sensational 19th century broadsheets, somewhat akin to the stories of the hook-handed man who was supposed to haunt lovers lanes in the US.
