Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Two-Disc Special Collector's Edition)

Rating R Formats DVD Genre musical Starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen Directed by Tim Burton Publisher DreamWorks and Warner Bros. External Links Sweeney Todd Website

Sweeney Todd opens with Benjamin Barker, under the moniker Sweeney Todd, coming back from fifteen years of exile to London. He is back for one reason, revenge against Judge Turpin and Beadle Bamford for ruining his life.

The Judge, played by Alan Rickman, is a wolf in sheep's clothing; using his position of power for personal gain. He fell in love with Barker's wife, sent him to prison on false charges to get him out of the way, married his wife, and then raised Barker's daughter as his own. A righteously bad dude who now plans to marry the young Joanna.

When Barker arrives at his old house he finds Mrs. Lovette, played by Helena Bonham Carter, now owns the building. She makes the worst meat pies in London and is struggling to get by. She also remembers Barker and informs him that his wife is dead and that she will help him to get his revenge on Turpin because she's in love with him.

The rest of the film unfurls this tale of revenge with some interesting twists along the way. The competition in town, the barber Perelli, played by Sacha Baron Cohen, is a great moment. The meat pies that Mrs. Lovette makes out of Todd's victims is another nice touch.

These moments in the film are delightful, hilarious, gruesome, and the epitome of what Sondheim was trying to do in this piece. Unfortunately, these moments are merely moments in a film that is generally a failure.

The source material is by one of the best American Musical writers of the twentieth century; the director of the film is prolific; critically and commercially successful. The film is populated by some of the best actors in the world.

Everything should add up to make this film a masterpiece, so why does it end up being a tedious, un-watch able, mess? To find the answer, we will work in order.

Stephen Sondheim was intimately involved in the creative process of turning Sweeney Todd the musical, into Sweeney Todd the film. They strove to make this not just a musical put on film, but to adapt the musical in to the film medium. To do this cuts and additions were made, music was rewritten, and characters were eliminated.

In doing this, their aim was to focus the film on Todd's story and to streamline the flow of the film. That idea makes some sense, since the stage version of Sweeny Todd has more storylines going on and Hollywood films like to focus their attention on fewer storylines. On paper it's a great idea, but in practice this lays the faulty foundation that the rest of the film teeters on.

Second, is Tim Burton's direction. Tim Burton has become a parody of himself. He shares this distinction with an ever growing list of American filmmakers (Wes Anderson, to name one).

Tim Burton started his career as the ultimate outsider, creating films that were uniquely his own in both theme and visual storytelling. But, like every fringe movement that goes mainstream, Burton's films are now regurgitations and mash ups of previous successes.

The "why" he does this can only be extrapolated from him, the effect that it has on the audience is boredom. Tim Burton is now a brand, a stamp, and an expectation. When you walk in to a Tim Burton film you know you will get cool visuals, Johnny Depp and/or Helena Bonham Carter, and a heavy influence from the horror movies of Hollywood's past (the story and acting may or many not be good).

Tim Burton alone does not spoil this film, but his ability to take any piece and mold it into a Burton film does affect the viewing experience. You become acutely aware that you are watching a Burton film. Some would argue that this reinforces his auteur status because you feel the gentle hand of the director guiding the way.

The flip side to that argument is that as an artist, as the great auteur he is, he should be taking chances and growing as a filmmaker in both how he addresses themes and his visual story telling language. But, Burton has stagnated on his last five or six attempts and has instead favored working on the Tim Burton brand.

That aside, let's focus on the filmmaking that is going on in Sweeney Todd. His placement of camera falls into two categories; unmotivated, and uninspired. He does very little to realize the full cinematic potential of the story instead he peppers in ridiculous computer generated camera shots to spice it up.

He relies too heavily on computer-generated effects that pull the audience out of the story and that don't fit into the general aesthetic of the film. The use of CG in most places ends up feeling masturbatory. They slow down the pacing of the film, drop the production value, and pull the audience out of the suspension of disbelief.

The film runs at just under two hours, but the editing is so out of sync with the audience it feels like a four-hour film. As the audience, we are way ahead of all of the characters. This is example one where the filmed adaptation is unsuccessful.

Potentially Burton's greatest mistake in Sweeney Todd is how he handles the main character, Sweeney Todd. There are two things going on here in cause and effect relationship. The first is what we talked about earlier, the stripping down of the story to focus more energy on Todd and there by eliminating other storylines.

This decision seems like a good one until you realize how truly uninteresting of a character Sweeney Todd really is. There is one thing that Sweeney Todd wants, revenge. It is all consuming and even after he has his revenge he actually wants more revenge (to go into too much detail would give away the ending).

The problem is that you have a main character, in almost every shot of the film, that lacks character change and whose want is something external to the scene. By the time he actually does get his revenge, we are so bored by it we just want it to happen already.

The sad thing is that the really interesting character in Sweeney Todd is Mrs. Lovette, and Helena Bonham Carter is truly inspired in this role. But, she was not honored for her work in this film, Johnny Depp was.

Tim Burton's casting of Depp in the title role, is the second fatal mistake that he made in this film.

Having already established the fact that Sweeney is uninteresting, we know that Depp had a large undertaking in this role. Granted, he did do great work with what he was given, but he lacks the presence he usually brings to a role. He seems to fade into the woodwork, where Mrs. Lovette takes center stage.

Look at Depp in this film and he is basically just seething or brooding the entire time. They even make a self referential joke to it in the "By the Sea" number sung by Mrs. Lovette. While she imagines them living together by the sea, he just sits and broods. It's hilariously funny, but for the wrong reasons.

There's no nice way to talk about Depp's inability to sing, so we'll just say it. Johnny Depp is not a singer he is an actor. He does not have the experience or talent to be able to handle the demanding vocal role that Sweeney Todd is. He usually falls on the flat side of notes and lacks the breath support to drive the tune in compelling and convincing way.

Depp received a Best Actor nomination for an Oscar, and actually won the Best Actor Golden Globe. How this happened boggles the mind.

The DVD has a ton of special features that all cover basically the same thing. There are some interesting DVD film school opportunities for those looking to get into special effects and blood work. Mostly, the special features fall into a commercial for the film, or the ‘look at how fantastic Depp, Burton, Bonham Carter, etc." is. They are, on the whole, tedious.

Sweeney Todd is a compelling story, set to great music, with interesting social commentaries and a classic tragic ending that is a horrible film. It is a copy of a reproduction of a once good musical. Don't waste your time watching it on the small screen. Save up enough money or get a sitter for the kids, just find a way to see this musical on the stage; it will be well worth it.