On it's own merits,it's very good...

Rating: 8/10 (31 January 2008)

...but put up against the stage production(and it DOESN'T have to be Broadway,btw),and this seems to be a little incomplete.
Still,it's quite a show.
Benjamin Barker has returned to London after fifteen years in prison(and,one can assume,enduring some very de-humanizing experiences there)for a charge that is never elaborated upon,not that it really matters. He's lost his business,his wife and his young child and,back in 1850s(I'm guess-timating)England,he's retained his long memory to add to plying his craft to exact his revenge. Now as the dour Sweeney Todd(Johnny Depp,plying himself ably in a role I,honestly, WOULDN'T have figured was truly meant for him),he's carefully enacted his plan while bordering over the business of the gruff,morally gray pie-maker Mrs.Lovett(Helena Bonham Carter,who,to me,was actually the truest find her,singing AND acting)who becomes his accomplice.
The strength of this show,be it on stage or here on screen,IS the music and the voices that fill it,and they don't disappoint. Depp's Todd is flawless,but I found myself more impressed with the performances of Bonham Carter(mentioned earlier),Alan Rickman(as the cruel and overbearing Judge Turpin),SAsha BAron Cohen(as the rival barber Pirelli)and Ed Sanders as the boy Toby,whose duet with Mrs.Lovett on "Not While I'm Around" is one of the best movie song sequences I've seen in a while!
Director Tim Burton's dark,sinister treatment of Stephen Sondheim's book and music seems like a good fit,and for the most part it does go together evenly. While I feel like this story and the music are better suited for the stage,I credit Burton and company with being able to make it easily workable on the big screen.
My rating might improve on "Sweeney" with another viewing or two. While I cannot ply the title "Best movie of '07" on this(nor do I feel any sense that the wrong call was made when it didn't get a Best pic/director nod by the academy recently),I certainly was impressed with the general construct and execution of the grizzly legend of tall tale and stage.