Absolutely Fantastic

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet StreetMusical genre has always been the heart of a theatre play or act and not so much in a film except some exceptions probably because not everyone gets it right but this time it has arrived, the long last wait of the musical film that we all deserved. Sweeney Todd is the darkest project ever by Tim; that is saying a lot considering his history, and the best one too for the first time the movie gives enough work to the audience to mesmerize them. Tim Burton has matured himself as a director far better than probably anyone for his execution is dot perfect along with editing and also a more reasonable world to settle in. Johnny Depp as always gives his heart to Tim and this time he deserved this movie where every side of him is visible as clear as a crystal; he is a revelation in it with a great supporting cast like Alan Rickman. Sweeney Todd isn't goofy or even peculiar considering its premise but sharply to the point with smart writing, horrifying characters and sketchy tone that breeds the darkest phase in a human life with stellar performances.

Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) returns to London with friend Anthony Hope after being falsely convicted by Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). He returns to his shop above Mrs. Nellie Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) and her worst pies in London. She tells him that Turpin lusted after his wife Lucy and abused her to death with his henchman Beadle Bamford (Timothy Spall). Turpin has taken his daughter Johanna Barker as his charge. Anthony falls for Johanna who is imprisoned in her gilded cage and is beaten by Beadle. Benjamin takes on the new identity of Sweeney Todd. He wins a battle with traveling barber Adolfo Pirelli (Sacha Baron Cohen) and reopens his barber shop.It's a cold, brutal, dark musical. The performances are brilliant especially Depp. The coloring, the dreamlike visual, and the brutal style are all compelling. The blood-splattering slices are wonderful. The whole movie has a dark menacing beauty about it.

Such excellent players like Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are ill-spent in this not better than fair movie. The best of it is the Victorian London atmosphere in interiors, exteriors and clothes, aristocratic and popular. The story in itself is somewhat abstruse. A corrupt judge is aroused by the beautiful wife of a barber and to be able to take hold of her has her husband imprisoned on a false accusation and sent to deportation. He comes back fifteen years later with a false identity and wants to take his revenge on the judge. The next episodes are grandguignolesque and somewhat incomprehensible filled with several murders of the barber's clients in the barber's shop he had installed in the first floor of a confectionery owned by a woman with whom he starts a love relationship. He cuts their throats while pretending to shave them. The victims' bodies are used by that woman to bake meat pies. Among other things, what is strange is that no friends or relatives ever turned up to query about those disappearances. The barber ends up by getting hold of the judge after attracting him to the barber shop on a false promise and he cuts his throat there. And from horrifying scene to horrifying scene everything turns out badly to the barber, his companion and even his wife that appears in the end and who he thought was dead a long time ago. He cuts her throat too since he didn't recognize her and thought she was the beggar in whom she had changed herself. Awful indeed.

Unfortunately, I was unable to accept the two leads' performances as befitting the characters. They underact to "Dull Surprise" levels, especially Depp. Don't get me started on that last scene! Furthermore, he doesn't look old enough to be the father of a sixteen-year-old, and their hair and make-up look too Hot Topic for my taste. I call this "But not too historical" syndrome. Do audiences really not want to see how people dressed and did their hair in times past, or are wardrobe people lazy?Most unforgivable is the fact that they cut sections of the musical that are a big part of why I love it, namely, Kiss Me, the Judge's song sequence and the beggar woman's pickup lines. Why does Tim Burton reduce Johanna's character but not Mrs. Lovett's? She's clearly misguided in all things, so I care more about the other women. I have a feeling the cuts were done to make the film under two hours, which is a terrible idea. Films that give themselves time are usually better.HOWEVER! Depp and Bonham-Carter are the only egregious things about the movie! Everyone else is dressed roughly appropriately for the period, and fits my personal vision of their character well. Rickman as Judge Turpin, for example, is one of the greatest casting moves of all time to the point where I forgive his inability to sing. Laura Michelle Kelly is also great but underutilized. My only problem with the supporting cast is the focus on Timothy Spall's face in the scene where he and Turpin have just left the courthouse. Finally, the film looks beautiful; I couldn't tell the backgrounds were mostly CG. But alas, Sweeney Todd needs engaging lead performances to work as a finished product.