Back into the box

Rating: 3/10 (25 February 2008)

The best thing you can say about this movie is that it doesn't try to give us a happy ending, a rare exception in big-budget Hollywood. But while "Mars Attacks!" was an undisputed masterpiece and "Sleepy Hollow" had its moments, "Sweeney Todd", like most other Burton pictures, lacks the wit to offset its essential triviality. For starters, I don't see why we should care about any of the lifeless characters. What the movie lacks in character development and storyline, it overdoes in production design. The blood is thicker, the night is darker, and everyone's eyes are wider than anywhere else. The pointlessly showy, physically impossible opening shot almost tops last year's CGI fest "Beowulf". Last not least, London is at its filthiest, dirtier yet than in the Hughes' brothers' "From Hell" and the Wachowskis' "V for Vendetta". But it's a special kind of Technicolor, candy-sweet chocolate factory filth that leaves you burping, yet strangely unsatisfied. The visual overkill, although duly rewarded with an Academy Award for art direction, makes you feel like you've had one too many of Mrs. Lovett's greasy pies. All principal actors are reprising roles they have played dozens of times before. Alan Rickman has long had his hairdressing moment when he was up against Bill Nighy in the British Hairdressing Championship ("Blow Dry"). The rest of the "Sweeney Todd" cast is unremarkable at best, except of course for a hilarious appearance by Sascha Baron Cohen in the part of Adolfo Pirelli, the fake Figaro.