Even Stephen Sondheim's music cannot salvage this movie.

Rating: 1/10 (13 January 2012)

Sometimes you have to rely on your gut feelings when deciding whether or not to do something and fortunately that I did in 2007 when something inside me said: "Don't see this move." Wow, was my gut feeling right! Recently I watched this movie on DVD, which I checked out from a public library. This may be the worst musical ever produced by Hollywood. The story is grotesque, the acting stagy and the musical numbers forgettable. Making a musical about a mass murderer is stretching literary license a bit far. Stephen Sondheim'syrics are clever, but even his music cannot save the story. Johnny Depp plays a role that is completely out of character for him; he is not an opera singer and his role required an actor who could belt out tunes; Ms. Bonham Carter's performance is laughable; and Alan Rickman is about as chilling a character as Charlie Chaplin. What this movie needed was Judge Dredd, not Judge Turpin. What's next on the agenda? A musical about Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy?