Entertaining adaptation of the musical.

Rating: 7/10 (5 February 2008)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street starts as wrongly convicted escaped penal colony prisoner Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) arrives back home in London 15 years after he was imprisoned at the behest of the corrupt Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) leaving behind a beautiful wife & a young daughter named Johanna for the lecherous old Judge to prey on. Barker heads back to where he used to live & finds Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) running a meat pie shop, she claims his wife committed suicide & the Judge now keeps Johanna (Jayne Wisener) imprisoned in his house. Changing his name from Barker to Sweeney Todd to hide his real identity he sets up a barber's above the meat pie shop where he plots his gruesome revenge...
This British American co-production was directed by Tim Burton & is a gory Gothic & darkly morbid film adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical as opposed to a straight adaptation of the infamous story which has been around since the 19th Century, apparently. The musical adaptation was by Christopher Bond while the films screenplay is credited to John Logan, I will admit right here & now that I haven't seen Sondheim's musical this is based on so I have no idea if it's faithful but by all accounts there are several songs missing from this & it goes without saying that this film version has far more flexibility in what it shows than a live stage musical ever could. I liked the story, I liked the setting, I liked the character's & for the most part I liked the songs too but I did think the first half was a little slow at times. It's fair to say right now a few weeks after Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opened it has reached #189 in the IMDb's 'Top 250' films list although I doubt very much that it will stay there especially when it comes out on home video. This is a hard film to call & recommend, apart from some isolated sequences with dialogue the entire film is sang & that in itself may put many off, it can look a bit strange at times & I must admit that I did start & get a little bored with it as the entire first half of the film is song after song with very little incident. Once the killings & gore start the films picks up immeasurably but that's probably down to the fact that I love horror films & gory horror films at that so one could argue that my liking for such things carried me through. If you don't like musicals where everyone bursts into song every few seconds & you don't like blood drenched darkly Gothic horror films then Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is your worst nightmare come true. This really is down to personal taste, if you have no interest in musicals or gore then give it a miss since I think it's a very acquired taste.
Director Burton knows how to turn in a visually interesting & stylish film with Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street no exception, there's some wonderful camera shots & plenty of little visual gags & clever touches. It's certainly a great & often ghoulish film to sit down & watch. The sets are superb, they really give you a feel of the run down rat infested back streets of Victorian (modern?!) London & are totally convincing. Large parts of the film are gore free but once the blood flows there's plenty on show with some of the coolest slit throats out there, huge spurts of crimson red blood look great as do the various minced up bodies & mutilated human remains seen at the end of the film. Talking of the end it's all rather morbid & downbeat, personally I thought it was an appropriate & fitting way to round the film off but just don't expect a Grease (1978) style happy ending! Over here in the UK the trailers that have run on TV have all been dialogue based & make no indication that Sweeney Todd: The Barber of Fleet Street is 95% musical, I could certainly see people mislead by the trailers into thinking they were going to see a Tim Burton Gothic horror gore-fest rather than a sprightly musical which I think is rather naughty...
With a supposed budget of about $50,000,000 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is superbly made with exquisite production values, the sets look gorgeous although Burton tends to bleach a lot of the colour out of the shot & at times it's not far from being black and white. Actually shot here in the UK this certainly looks very nice. The acting is alright, the singing is alright & I have no major problems with either although I doubt anyone will be singing any of the songs on show here to themselves on the way home & the heavy cockney accents might put some off.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is an acquired taste for sure, I'm positive it won't stay in the IMDb Top 250 for very long & I don't really think it deserves to be there now. This one really is down to personal tastes, bear in mind that it's a musical & that it's quite bloody & if it still appeals to you then your more than likely going to enjoy it.