The thin line between genius and insane

Rating: 10/10 (7 March 2008)

When I first heard that a new Tim Burton film was in the makings my ears perked. Doubly so because Helena Bonham-Carter and Johnny Depp would be starring in it, which had proved to be a winning threesome in the past. Then I heard the theme of the film would be just as grim as The Corpse Bride and my heart fluttered (for I love that one too). So, expectancies were high. Very high.
The film then. The story is the one of revenge. A guy named Benjamin Barker is wrongfully accused and sent to exile. When he returns he wants his revenge on the ones that did this to him. Returning to his home town as Sweeney Todd he starts planning, taking up residence with a pastry maker. And from there it rolls.
The setting of the film is dark. Grim colored scenes depicting a dark time to live in, and doing that well. Characters are picked with great care and played by actors that do it well. And, to make the grimness at the same time more and less intense, dark and twisted humor is added for good laughter, and most dialog is sung to add a sense of merriness. The totaling sum of all this is a rather morbid film that will bring a smile or a hearty laugh to anyone with a wicked sense of humor.
Not that the film only works for those with that sense of humor. The settings are so wonderfully worked out that it is just a pleasure to watch the scenes as they pass by - everything adds together and just works, no gaps, no jumps. Just a work of art.
10 out of 10 chins shaved