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First, let me say that I’ve been looking forward to this film for quite some time. Sweeney Todd is one of my favorite Broadway musicals, and the fact that Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Stephen Sondheim were bringing it to the big screen just made it even better. Now, on to the review:
(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD! If you haven’t seen the movie, you might not want to read any further!)
Music. The music in the movie was awesome. Not just my favorite numbers like “My Friends”, “Poor Thing” and “The Contest” and such, but even the ballads as sung by Mrs. Lovett (which weren’t ever really my favorites) were done exceptionally well. I even found myself tapping my foot along with the music the entire time, which definitely means it was catchy. If it weren’t, I would’ve been asleep. I’m sort of surprised at Johnny Depp’s singing ability, and I’m surprised that I’m surprised, considering he was in Cry Baby (although I recently found out his voice was dubbed for those rockabilly songs!). His voice was surprisingly strong and solid. I give the music a 10/10.
Acting. The acting, too, was completely solid. There wasn’t a weak moment in any scene that I could detect. The characters are unspeakably memorable, from Depp’s extraordinary character development to Helena Bonham Carter’s portrayal of Mrs. Lovett as despising of London as Sweeney Todd is to Alan Rickman’s flawless portrayal of Judge Turpin, whose turpitude created Sweeney Todd’s demon spirit from the ashes of the nice barber Benjamin Barker. Even the kid, Toby, had a flawless performance. I truly bought that Sweeney Todd wanted revenge, that Mrs. Lovett was in love with Todd, that the old hag was crazy, that Anthony loved Johanna (in a slightly creepy, stalkerish way), that Judge Turpin (the old perv) wanted to bang the daylights out of Johanna, that Toby was scared of Todd, that… well, you get the point.
Cinematography. Awesome. Simply awesome. Burton’s vision of Sweeney Todd is reminiscent of his Sleepy Hollow, but instead of faux-comic horror, this time it’s real. The streets of London aren’t dark to scare you, they’re dark because the denizens of London are evil bastards with true criminal hearts. There’s not a single good person in London, except perhaps Johanna. Everyone is self-serving, deprecating, and twisted in their own ways. The cinematography reflects that, with harsh lights, shadows, dark scenery, rotted sets, and horrid people.
I found several instances where lighting changed where it shouldn’t have. For example, when Mrs. Lovett is telling Sweeney Todd about how his wife took poison, they show the scene from two different angles — looking at Mrs. Lovett and looking at Sweeney Todd. When you look at Mrs. Lovett, you can see Todd off to the side. The right side of his face is dark. When they cut back to Todd, the lighting has changed — the right side of his face is now bright, while his left side is dark. There were at least a dozen other instances similar to this.
Doing a movie with such dramatic lighting will inevitably cause this kind of thing, so I’m not terribly upset about it. It’s just that usually I don’t notice those kinds of things, so for me to notice, that’s not a good sign. Other than that, no other issues with cinematography or lighting or anything like that. Amazing work, really.
Directing. Okay, up until now it’s been mostly roses and happiness. Now I’ve got a serious nitpick with Burton. He has this annoying habit of stopping the action when the actors sing. For instance, when Anthony sees Johanna singing in the window, he should have been trying to get her attention, running down the street to get flowers, and trying to show that he’d been struck by Cupid’s arrow. Instead, he stands there and stares at her.
When Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney Todd sing “Like A Priest”, they stare out the window. There is no interplay between them, there is nothing interesting — they simply stare out the window and sing. They should be having fun — they’re devising the means of their revenge against the blasted denizens of London! Mrs. Lovett should be flirting with Todd, he should be ecstatic that he now has a way to get back at the bastard Judge Turpin. Instead, they stare out a window. How drab.
When the kid, Toby, sings to Mrs. Lovett about how he’s not going to let anything happen to her, he’s just sitting there singing to her, and she’s singing back. Let’s have some action, folks! I’ve heard the soundtracks before. I know the songs. I don’t need to sit there and watch a person sing. I can imagine that well enough on my own. Bring on some action, bring me something new to happen!
This was a huge fuckup on Burton’s part, as far as I’m concerned. If they can fill these songs with action on Broadway, then they can certainly do even better on screen. The budget, at $50 million, is many times that of the Broadway version (less than $10 million), so they could definitely have improved upon it.
Overall. At any rate, I’d have to say that Sweeney Todd is one of my new favorite films. As I mentioned before, I love the story, I love the actors, I love the songs, and I love movies. Put them together and what have you got? Bibbity-bobbity-Sweeney-fucking-Todd.
I love it.
Final Rating: 9/10
Here is another review of Sweeney Todd that I read. Excellent points, all.
What did you think of the movie?
Do you agree with my review?
Did you agree with it at all
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(What do you know… I’m a poet and I didn’t realize it!)
