Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Review
by Steve Rhodes (steve DOT rhodes AT internetreviews DOT com)December 20th, 2007
SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2007 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
Singers that can't sing, repetitive tunes that aren't the least bit memorable and a director more in love with his macabre settings than with the story or the songs sure make for one long night at the movies. With a really good musical, WALK HARD: THE DEWEY COX STORY, opening the same day, it isn't clear why anyone who is not a card-carrying member of the Johnny Depp fan club would pick SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET. Our audience was certainly not impressed. Still, for people who love horror movie gore and have been waiting for a musical slasher film, they finally have their picture, as Depp spends a fair amount of his screen time covered in buckets and buckets of blood.
Director Tim Burton, using a very limited color palette that runs from grey to black with the exception of the blood red, creates a bleak vision for us this Christmas. His version of the well-known Stephen Sondheim musical is heavy on the atmospherics.
Depp and his co-star Helena Bonham Carter have what might charitably be called modest singing voices. But, since all of the songs in this musical sound about the same, their lack of any real vocal skills is less important. Actually, after seeing the movie, I have no desire to ever see the stage version of the musical. Suffice it to say that about twenty minutes of this film is all you need. After that you'll be checking your watch and waiting for the closing credits so you can get your life back.
It is clear that what attracted Burton to this musical was the chance to amplify and magnify its violent images. Depp, who plays demented barber Sweeney Todd, gets to slice one person's throat after another. The newly deceased's blood spews with the intensity of a fire hose, covering Todd in bright red.
The exceedingly thin story concerns Todd's wanting to get revenge on Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), who stole Todd's wife from him.
What I had hoped and assumed would be a nice cameo by Sacha Baron Cohen (BORAT) turned into a lame bit of would-be comedy, as Todd and a huckster known as Signor Adolfo Pirelli (Cohen) engage in a shaving duel, refereed by Beadle Bamford (Timothy Spall).
The overtures are sweeping and grand and the sets are magnificently morbid, but, other than that, there isn't a lot to hold viewers' attentions. I noticed that several of those around me engaged in long bathroom breaks, probably out of boredom.
Some groups have begun to nominate this film and its male lead for Best Picture and Best Actor awards. I just don't see it. This isn't even a film worth recommending, much less praising.
SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET runs too long at 1:58. It is rated R for "graphic bloody violence" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, December 21, 2007. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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