Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Devilishly delightful and gruesomely gory, Sweeney Todd is a bold and luscious undertaking, yet it never quite coagulated enough for me. Like a bloody pie still oozing inside, it could have benefited from some more time in the oven, or maybe its the ingredients that didn't work together quite well enough.

Johnny Depp is great as the macabre and vengeful Sweeney Todd, scowling and leering his way through the movie. Despite how much I love Depp's efforts in almost all his movies, his singing, though pleasant-sounding, didn't carry the weight and depth that I would expect in a musical. The same can be said of the other main actors: Helana Bonham Carter was gorgeous as always, a perfect vision in her Edwardian garb, but her voice was as thin as one of Sweeney's razors. The same goes for Alan Rickman, who's always a delight as he oozes sleaze like no-one else can, but couldn't sing his way out of a paper bag. The singing of the supporting cast was much stronger, probably due to the fact that they were chosen first for their signing abilities and secondly for their acting.

I think the main culprit, however, might be in the songs themselves. Though they advanced the story for the most part, I just didn't find any of them very memorable or compelling. If they had a little more "meat" to them, I probably could have overlooked the adequate, but not exceptional, singing. They didn't though, which is probably why I noticed it as much.

Though I am not a fan on gory films, I don't shy away from them either. I can usually tolerate an extreme amount of depicted violence or gore in a film if it supports the story line or the style in which it is told. There I times that I found Sweeney Todd to be exceptionally gory though, especially the montage where he is slitting everyone's throats and dumping their bodies through the trapdoor (to come down violently on their lifeless heads like rag dolls, but with realistic crunching and splatting sounds). There was something about this that seemed too realistic and didn't fit the more comical, surreal nature of the rest of the film.

The sets, lighting, acting, costumes, and cinematography in Sweeney Todd are top notch. There is no-one better than Burton to create and transport you to an alternate reality. Something about the mixture of comedy, drama, horror, and musical didn't quite work for me though. I'm not saying that it can't be done, I just feels like all the ingredients didn't quite fit together that well in the film. It's kinda like going to a nasty, hole-in-wall diner and finding a finger in your chicken pot pie: Not totally out of context, but disruptive to your meal nevertheless.


Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Starring: Johnny Depp, Helana Bohnam Carter, Alan Rickman
Directed by: Tim Burton

(4 out of 7 skinks)