There will be blood - lots of it...,

Rating: 6/10 (3 May 2008)

I guess blood is appropriated in the movie of betrayal, revenge, and cannibalism among the other things. Benjamen Barker (Johnny Depp in his third Oscar Nominated performance) comes back to London after being falsely imprisoned by the corrupt judge (Alan Rickman) who wanted him out of the way, so he could steal his wife and daughter. He goes back to his old profession under the name Sweeney Todd as a barber but his purpose of life is to take revenge of the judge. Before he finally gets to the judge, Todd masters the shaving skills on dozens (maybe hundreds) of customers, becoming The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Todd's neighbor and accomplice Mrs. Lovett helps him to get rid of the corpses at the same time improving greatly the taste and quality of her meat pies for sale that soon become the hottest item in London.
Who else but Tim Burton could adapt this material to the screen? As we would expect in his films, he does his usual admirable job with dark Gothic sets and art direction (Oscar winning). Staging, production design, costumes, editing, cinematography are impressive and create gloomy and doomed mood. Johnny Depp and Helena Bohnam Carter both did very good job not just acting but also singing in the film. Depp has gotten high praises for his performance and was nominated for many awards but I found Carter's performance most interesting and her character most memorable.
The loyal fans of the original musical praise the songs and the very specific darker than dark sense of humor. While I agree that whatever songs have made it to the movie were melodically interesting enough, hard as I tried it was difficult to find humor in Burton's version. What was easy to find - enormous amount of blood gushing from the screen "in your face" in the very realistic manner, preceded by numerous throats slicing. Blood overwhelmed everything and everybody on the screen. Blood is the thing that I remember distinctly. Yes, I got the point. Sweeney Todd was the barber, and his specialty was to give his clients too close of the shave but did Burton really need all that blood? I am sure everyone got the point after the first throat slicing and certainly after the second. After that - all the bloodshed became boring, tedious, and disgusting. I guess, Tim Burton needed it so, he "could reflect on the horrors he had invented". I've been always a subscriber to the opinion that "Implied is so much better than literal". The scariest monster or the most horrific murder is the one that we never see, the uncertainty is the scariest monster of all and as long as we don't see it we picture it in our imagination and get scared of what we imagine. Once the monster is for us to see (especially as many times as in the movie), it is not scary anymore, it is laughable, and it loses whatever impact it was supposed to make, at least on this viewer.