Sweeney Todd Review
(Sorry for no video version of this review, but I’m currently visiting out in LA) On this recent trip to LA, I was fortunate enough to have the studio invite me to a screening of Sweeney Todd with some of the cast and crew last week. It’s strange that I’ve been looking forward to this film so much, especially when you consider that I’m not a fan of Tim Burton’s at all (Although I’m one of the few people that thought he did a great job with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).
For Sweeney Todd, Tim Burton once again brings Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter to his aid to tell the story of the demon barber of Fleet street. Just from the trailers you could tell that the visual style of the film would be fun to watch, but would the story be enough to carry it through… and would it work as a musical? These are the questions I had going in to Sweeney Todd.
THE GENERAL IDEA
Johnny Depp plays a young and talented barber in London. He has a wonderful life with a beautiful wife that he loves with his whole heart, and a baby daughter. Life is wonderful until one day the local corrupt Judge (Played by Alan Rickman) notices Depp’s wife and decides he wants her for his own. The Judge has Depp arrested on false charges and sent away to prison so he can move in and take his wife. 15 years have passed and Depp now returns to London a very different man. He changes his name to Sweeney Todd and all his hope, innocence and optimism are now replaced by anger, bitterness and thoughts of harsh revenge. To unleash his vengeance on the people of London, he takes up his old profession… but this time decides to give shaves a lot closer.
THE GOOD
As I suspected from the trailers, the visual style of Sweeney Todd is quite gorgeous. Burton captures the essence of the time period in London and does a slick job of taking you there to the dirty streets. Typical of Burton films, the screen is dark much of the time… only this time it was quite appropriate and used well. The set design and special visual effects were used together in such a way that environments were always great to look at… but never took away from what was happening on screen.
Johnny Depp. What can you really say about him? Even if you don’t like Depp (which I do) you’ve got to admit he can do the dark brooding thing really well. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite parts of the film was a semi-dream montage of supposedly HAPPY situations where everyone around is clearly joyful, but Sweeney consistently looks miserable… trust me it really worked. Depp was solid as expected and sets the tone for the whole film as a man robbed of his innocence, his wife, his child and clearly his sanity, fueled now by pure rage and anger. Very well done.
I’ve said it many times, but for films like this one, you have to have a solid villain figure for it to rise above mediocre… and who on earth will ever be as good at delivering that than Alan Rickman? As the corrupt Judge in London and the object of Sweeney Todd’s wrath, Rickman puts all of the evil and charm, sophistication and savagery. He is the worst and most dangerous kind of hypocrite…. the one that doesn’t even realize he is a hypocrite. You LOATHE Rickman for his villainy… but hate him even more when he’s eloquent . It was a huge challenge to have a character be the BAD GUY when Sweeney Todd is standing across from him and make Todd look more sympathetic… but Rickamn does it.
Two BRILLIANT small supporting roles in the film really stood out. Sacha Baron Cohen as a barbering competitor for Sweeney Todd was very funny, and you could literally feel the theater light up when he came on screen. BUT… even better was Timothy Spall who plays Rickman’s evil henchman. I swear Spall would have stolen the whole movie if he had much more screen time. Every moment he’s on there his presence captures you… so greasy, so foul and yet so funny. I loved him.
The story of the film was the strong point. A wronged man, returning to the city of his betrayal years later under a new identity seeking revenge on those who perpetrated the egregious offense on him. Watching his plan for revenge unfold and seeing those who get caught up in his destructive path all tied up with a satisfying ending.
THE BAD
Yes, I get it, I know Helena Bonham Carter looks goth, but so what? Some critic circles are giving carter mention for potential best supporting actress… but I simple didn’t see it. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t thing Helena Bonham Carter was horrible in Sweeney Todd, but she was clearly a weak point who never would have been considered for this role had her husband not been the director (which is something mentioned a lot about her regarding more than half the movies she’s appeared in). Whenever she had dialog, or a song to sing, it felt like the movie just stopped. I don’t dislike Carter, but she wasn’t right for this part… but my opinion on this issue is in the minority.
The Music was bland, and for a musical that’s a big weakness. When we came out of Lion King, we were all humming hakuna matata or Circel of Life. When we came out of Moulin Rouge we were humming “This is your song” or “Come what may”… however the music in Sweeney Todd is utterly forgettable, and other than a few lines that are in the trailer, I’ve already forgotten all of it. Some may disagree, but this movie would have been 3x better had it not been a musical. Yes yes yes… I know the music is a part of it… but when adapting it to the screen I truly feel that Sweeny Todd would have been better off without being a musical. The story was strong, the performances were wonderful and honestly the musical numbers just got in the way… which wouldn’t have been the case if the music wasn’t so forgettable. To me, this was the one major flaw of Sweeney Todd.
OVERALL
Despite the fact that Sweeney Todd would have been better without being a musical, the story, performances, art… and yes I’ll say it… the DIRECTION (and I’m no Tim Burton Fan) were all strong enough to still make Sweeney Todd an enjoyably gruesome (it’s very gory) film with soul. I had a good time watching this film, and I think most of you will too. Not as good as I was hoping it would be, but certainly worth of your ticket money. Overall I give Sweeney Todd a 7.5 out of 10
1. Christina replies at 17th December 2007, 10:02 am :
I usually agree with you John, but I have to disagree about the music. Sondheim’s music is not about being hummable-it’s about being complex and suiting the story, and he’s the best composer of musicals who has ever lived. Of course, if you just don’t like musicals, you don’t like musicals, but to denigrate the best score ever written for the musical theatre (and many agree) just hurts. (Of course, some of the best songs were left out because they were chorus pieces… ah well.) It’s way, way better than The Lion King. Get the DVD of the original stage show with Angela Lansbury and you may better understand. I haven’t seen to movie yet so I can’t speak to that.
2. AjaxLou replies at 17th December 2007, 10:06 am :
The only movie with music in that works for me is The Wizard of Oz.
3. John replies at 17th December 2007, 10:06 am :
Hey Christina,
I do love musicals… HOWEVER… as we all know, just because something works on a stage, does not mean it works on the screen. Or just because something works on the page, doesn’t mean it will work on the screen. Different mediaum require different adaptations, and I found that the music in Sweeney Todd THE MOVIE just didn’t work.
I felt the same way about RENT. I LOVED the stage show of rent, and loved the music… but on the screen it felt a lot more lifeless, and it just didn’t fit as well.
So I’m not saying the music of Sweeney Todd didn’t work wonderfully for the stage… I’m simply saying, that in my opinion, it didn’t work for the screen.
4. Christina replies at 17th December 2007, 10:13 am :
John, that’s fine-I just wish you’d put it that way in the review. You said the music was forgettable, which sounds like it’s forgettable overall. After I posted the comment, I wished I’d said something to the effect of “if it’s not working in the movie, that’s a different matter.” I can understand what you’re saying now, and for all I know I may end up having the same opinion.
I highly recommend the Lansbury DVD, by the way. Again, I can’t speak to the movie, but the DVD of the stage show will show you what it’s supposed to be. I guarantee that it will challenge any ideas that a musical’s main job is to be “hummable.” You do end up humming the title tune, though, but that is unfortunately not in the movie.
5. Herby replies at 17th December 2007, 12:55 pm :
I have to agree with Christina about the Lansbury stage show on DVD. After watching that my excitement for the film heightened. These songs are not meant to be toe tappers, After all it’s about a homicidal barber whose wife and child was stolen from him. And the music is also very operatic, so there are no Ichewa Banana moments.
Will be at the box office opening day.
6. DarkKinger replies at 17th December 2007, 12:56 pm :
*Gasp!* John likes a Tim Burton movie, and I’m seeing websites give Alvin and the Chipmunks a good review~! Is this freakin’ Bizarro World~?!
7. Mr. James replies at 17th December 2007, 1:25 pm :
I couldn’t agree more about getting the stage version of Sweeney Todd with Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury! Although Angela Lansbury got a Tony the year it premiered on Broadway Len Cariou is the one that I believe truly shines in his performance of Sweeney and I think shows what Sweeney should have been on screen. I’ve been seeing Depp in the trailers and I will say I’m warming to him more and more. However, Len Cariou was just such a presence on stage! Larger and bulkier than Depp he brought a lot of weight (both figuratively and literally) to the character. You believed he came from the slums of Britain and worked his way up through life as a barber. Depp looks like he came from the upper crusts of British society and now he’s just having a bad weekend bender after his credit card got stolen.
I’m still going to be in line waiting to see this one opening day but I can see from the trailer what John is talking about.
Also, I have never wished for a divorce as bad as I have between Helena Bonham and Tim Burton. Just for a few years so he can find a new leading lady! The part could have gone to anyone else and I would have been happier. I think Parker Posie would have been splendid!
8. bigsampson replies at 18th December 2007, 1:17 am :
i thought the movie was just like everything else done buy all the ….burton,depp,carter….ya i get it burton really likes carters mangina…..but i mean really she rocked in planet of the apes…she was really AN APE!
BTW i thought the movie was a 7.5 too…but i kinda think musicals are not my thing since i was forced by media to like rap!!! ya so my judgment is based on that i hated hearing all the starcrazed depp fans just having a field day with him in this movie…ya ya ya i know depp is awesome, he has been around some wierd stuff.
9. Christine replies at 20th December 2007, 12:47 pm :
Wow! First of all, Sweeney Todd began as a musical, written by the same guy that gave us words to the West Side Story.
You must not be a musician if you can’t appreciate Sondheim’s complex harmonies. I think you might have considered the Lion King more “memorable” because the chords were much simpler and easier to hum along to -which is not an accurate indicator of how wonderful the music is. In my opinion, its like criticizing a Beethoven piano concerto in favor of Britney Spears.
10. John replies at 20th December 2007, 12:53 pm :
Hey Christine,
Clearly you didn’t understand what I was saying. Just because something works in once medium, does not mean it works in another. And the music in Sweeney Todd does not work for the big screen. That’s not to take away from how good it plays on stage… but on screen it didn’t work.
And for the record, I am a musician and I go to a lot of live theater and musicals (one of the advantages of living so close to Toronto)
11. Kristina replies at 21st December 2007, 2:23 pm :
I just saw it and I agree with your review except for your criticism of the music. I loved the Joanna duet with Anthony and Sweeney, and the orchestral music is gorgeous. I really dug the movie.
12. Cristina replies at 21st December 2007, 9:37 pm :
I really loved this movie. I had been waiting for it for about a year and I have to say that Helena wasn’t that bad. I had doubts about her but compared to some of the musicals I have been tortured by she was not bad at all!
13. invaziondrummer replies at 23rd December 2007, 1:18 am :
When did Campea become a musician? At any rate, I disagree with him once more as I feel that this is FINALLY the movie that Helena Bonham Carter IS right for, and was PERFECT in. I was VERY impressed when it came time for her to sing. I liked her voice much more than Johnny Depp’s, and I am a HUGE mark for Johnny Depp.
I do feel though that the story IS strong enough to forego the musical aspect of it. I just felt that there were too many songs, and some of the lyrics were very hard to follow between the dueling accents, and the fast pace in some parts. I also feel like the story itself is lacking towards the beginning, AND the end. I felt shortchanged and it seemed like there were some loose ends. However I would actually give this an 8.5 overall.
14. Luna_dracul replies at 24th December 2007, 10:49 am :
I have not seen the movie but i just had to ask,How can you not be a burton fan. His movies may seem goth but they give this genre of movies a nice twist. I am a huge fan of johnny depp have, been since 21 jump st(god i feel old) but he was a sex icon for young girls, with the bad boy attitude. Burton does awesome scores with danny elfman and this movie has very little which is sad but as musicals go this wasnt the best even on broadway so you cant expect much on the big screen so i cant wait to see it.
15. Meli replies at 25th December 2007, 12:56 am :
I totally disagree about your assement of the music. I thought it was fitting with the movie. In fact, my daughter bought me the soundtrack for the film and we just sat down and listed to it…fabulous. Moving. It’s complex and meaningful. While you might forget about it the songs have not left my head. I think it might be due to one’s mood. You compare it to the Lion King, which is light hearted and inspriational, but Todd is dark and brooding. It would be understandable why perhaps you wouldn’t be humming it an hour later. I loved this move as did my daughter, who I allowed on this one occasion to see an R rated movie.
16. Jorge replies at 27th December 2007, 9:14 pm :
I remember the first time I heard about Sweeney Todd, I was sitting out side of a construction site waiting for my cousin to get off work.
I was listening to it on the radio with my headset, I had missed the first fifth teen minutes of it, but the second I heard it I was transported into another world, it felt like I was listening to one of those old radio shows (you remember, like EG Marshall’s Mystery Theatre)
Anyway the music and lyrics was like a haunting melodrama and my imagination took off. All I had to do was listen and I could imagine the plot without visuals, I didn’t know what I was listening to but I was being drawn in and I remember wanting to know who wrote this superb piece of work and where I could buy it! When it was over I knew I heard something great…. The announcer said it was Sondheim!
I love this man’s work from West Side Story to Passion and I have been a fan of Sweeney ever since, I never got to see the original Broadway production with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou (only the VHS tape stage production with her and George Hearn), they were excellent and I swore that if they ever revived it back on Broadway I would get tickets and they did and I did! Again excellent!!!
With this sudden burst of stage musical adaptations being made into films I was very excited to hear that Sweeney was coming to the screen, my fear was that Hollywood would butcher it and from the many, many reviews, postings from people who saw it, that’s exactly what they did. Not only did the cut some of the songs in half, cut some of the characters they made it into my worst kind of movie…A Slasher movie with tons of violence and buckets of blood! The original show didn’t have that much violence or blood, the one thing that I loved about this musical was the music and it seems it took a back seat to Johnny waving his blade around like a maniac, even in all the trailers you made it clear that it was a Jonnhy Depp brood fest. I hate slasher movies (I can’t stomach them) I would have loved to seen this film version but won’t because of the violent bloody content. So thanks Tim Burton for ruining this for me, I only waited twenty eight years! Shame on you! Sondheim should have said no to Hollywood!
Here is a sample of a review I read; Tim Burton has turned “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” into the most elegant slasher movie ever made.
Perhaps that shouldn’t be a surprise. By now audiences should be familiar with Stephen Sondheim’s musical about a demented London barber (played by Johnny Depp) who murders his clients and dumps the bodies to he restaurant below where his landlady, Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), bakes the victims into pies.
The material, with cannibalism upon serial killing, certainly would appeal to Burton’s longstanding love for macabre humor, but the level of gore Burton goes for will still come as a shock. “Sweeney Todd” makes the original “Nightmare on Elm Street” look like “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.”
“Sweeney Todd” is the tribute to the bloody 1960s Hammer Studios horror films that Burton wanted “Sleepy Hollow” to be. Once Sweeney Todd turns his straight razor into a murder weapon, Burton lets blood erupt like Vesuvius, right down to a deadpan musical montage of graphic throat slashings. But the queasiness doesn’t stop there. Each cut throat is followed by the sickening sight of the corpse landing head first on the basement floor three stories below.
If Burton intended to make the violence so extreme that we want to laugh at it, then he fails. You either get used to the gore after the first few killings or you don’t. Even if you do, the bloodshed detracts from the rest of Burton’s exquisite production values.
17. Mofo Toshio replies at 30th December 2007, 10:05 am :
Liked this one a lot. Honestly, I thought Bonham Carter did fine and I actually really enjoyed most of the music (and I was sort of dreading it going in based on the trailer). Yeah, I agree with all these pros but really…my only cons would be that soma the songs were repeated too much and dragged a bit, though they were always necessary and were each quite entertaining (though I agree, I can’t seem to remember many of them).
18. Rick S replies at 5th January 2008, 11:57 am :
John,
I totally understand how you could say the music was forgettable. Appreciation for the music of Sweeny may not come on the first hearing or even the second. The tunes are complex. I highly recommend getting the sound track and listening to it maybe a dozen times or so. Try to pick out every word. At some point the absolute brilliance of this music will hit you, and you will wonder how you could have thought any of these songs were “forgettable”. At least that was what happened to me.
On HBC…I neither love nor hate her, but I think she was a definite weak spot in this film. She wasn’t bad; I think she was just flat. (Not off-key, I just mean the performance was flat) There was no spark, and the comic element of Mrs. Lovett was lost. Burton should have caught this, but perhaps he was just trying to minimize the comedy and keep the tale dark. Even so, HBC’s Lovett just lacked verve.
Still a fantastic film. One I did not fully appreciate upon leaving the theater. Let the music sink into you, and you will love it.
19. Movie Online replies at 13th January 2008, 5:30 am :
I haven’t seen it yet (didn’t had time) but I’m planning to see it next week after reading your review
20. steve replies at 18th January 2008, 7:14 am :
utterly unbelivable, that anyone can say such things about music of such high quality.
to say it does not work in this medium is just tosh! despite what you have said you just can’t understand that this is an adapation of the musical, if their was no music they would not have bothered to make the film