Average at Best

Rating: 6/10 (20 January 2008)

First I would like to comment on what was done right in this movie. Tim Burton certainly knows how to create a "dark" film. "Sweeny Todd" reminds me of a cross between "Nightmare Before Christmas," "Edward Scissorhands," and "The Count of Monte Cristo." Johnny Depp sure gave a fantastic performance as Sweeny Todd. As a matter of fact, all the actors/actresses did a great job both in acting and their singing. The story was pretty solid as well. Like I said it reminds me of "The Count of Monte Cristo" because Todd goes after revenge on all who had wronged him in the past. However, the way he takes his revenge is truly out of the ordinary.
Not everything about this movie was great however. I had a problem with all the singing. Not that I don't like musicals, I'll be honest musicals aren't my favorites, but you couldn't really "get into" the songs. What I mean by that is take "The Wizard of Oz" or "The Phantom of the Opera" for example. These are musicals where you can sing along and the songs really add so much to the story. Outside of the song about his arm being complete I really didn't feel that the songs had much of a purpose. I also didn't care for the ending, although I'm not going to give anything away.
Finally I wan't to close by disputing the 8.3 rating on IMDb. I highly disagree with this film being one of the 250th best films of all time. A raking of 6 or 7 makes since to me but 8.3 is far to high.