D for Dreadful (some spoilers)

Rating: 3/10 (6 January 2008)

Tim Burton missed the point of this one. I'm sorry. He just doesn't get it.
Yes, this film is Sweeney Todd through Tim Burton's eyes, that is one thing for sure.
Tim Burton's direction is just way, way too heavy. This material is very dark. It doesn't need the heavy, dark hand of Burton to make it any darker.
I was not a fanatic of the musical before seeing the film. In fact I had only seen one version of the musical before, the most recent Broadway production directed by Jonathan Doyle, with the incomparable Michael Cerveris as Sweeney. So I am not a traditionalist, and I am certainly open to new interpretations. If they are good.
This interpretation simply wasn't. It's not only the fact that Burton changed around major plot points (like how three of the major characters are killed). It's not only Helena Bonham Carter's wooden acting skills (except for when she is screaming as she's burned to death). Burned to death? Wait, that's not in the script. Oh, it is now! And I could be wrong but I don't believe for a second that she is the one singing her role.
I was pleasantly surprised by Johnny Depp's singing, although it took some getting used to. I thought it would be awful, and it wasn't. But his acting, which I usually love, was simply awful. Academy Award? Please. Stop kidding around. Maybe I just had a hard time seeing past all the teased up 80s style hair on his head, but a few eyebrow raises, forehead crinkles and blank stares are not my idea of Oscar-worthy acting.
But speaking of jokes, where were they? This script is supposed to be damn funny. Many funny bits sprinkled throughout, from the Worst Pies in London through the silly interludes in Pretty Women to the hilarious double meanings in By the Sea, A Little Priest (I'm sorry, why were they looking out the window in this scene instead of interacting with each other over the pies? I must have missed this. Oh, that's right, they didn't interact in the WHOLE FILM - except for that one part when Sweeney tells her to get out, loved that).
But apparently Tim Burton missed the humor. Not only the humor, but he seemed to have missed the entire point of the whole song A Little Priest (not to mind the whole point of Sweeney's story).
He also took out any sexual references, including a whole song, and made the whole thing very unsexy. I have read reviews saying Carter was very sexy in this, but I didn't see that at all. Yeah, her very shallow cleavage shows through most of the movie, except in one scene during By the Sea when she inexplicably seems to have no breasts or nipples at all, but that doesn't make for sexy.
The only giggle in the entire theater came from me when Sacha Baron Cohen (a breath of fresh air, IMHO) came out in that ridiculous blue body suit reminiscent of the late Evel Knievel.
By making Toby an actual little boy rather than an adolescent or adult who might not be all quite there, Burton took away a lot of the meaning of this part of the script as well, and took away some of the humor from Pirelli's Miracle Elixir as well as one of the most beautiful songs of all, Not While I'm Around.
Oh and don't get me started on the music. Horrible, awful. Taking Sondheim's masterpiece and making it almost unrecognizable. There were three tempos of music in the film: very slow, extremely slow, and super fast. Really it's only two tempos (very slow and super fast) but I'm trying to give a little more credit than is deserved. In parts the usually gorgeous score tended to drag on and on and on and in other parts it was so rapid it was like someone suddenly just turned up the metronome and no one realized it. Almost like little robot people just got their engines revved up.
Yes, robotic. That's how I would describe almost all of the acting. Alan Rickman was good as usual. Sacha Baron Cohen gave some needed spice to the movie. I usually love Johnny Depp and can rarely find fault with him, but this older, not wiser, version of Edward Scissorhands just did not sit very well with me. I usually hate Bonham Carter and she did not disappoint in this regard. Why was she cast in the film again? Oh, right. She's Tim Burton's wife. I almost forgot.
Jamie Campbell Bower was okay as Anthony, seemed a little young for the role and his facial expressions were odd at times, but he held his own. And Jayne Wisener had the best singing voice in the cast (besides Rickman's, which was quite good as well), her acting wasn't bad either.
Timothy Spall was at times bearable, at times awful as Beadle. Does everything have to be visual with you, Burton? Is everyone ugly evil and everyone evil ugly and all is black and white? Seems that way.
The visuals were sometimes interesting, but mostly again very very heavy handed, and unnecessarily so. I didn't see anything interesting or original about them. They were also at times completely implausible. For example, there is no physical way the chute for the bodies could go directly to the basement fro the barber shop. Thet would have to pass through Mrs. Lovett's bakery. This is stupid and unnecessary.
If you're sick of reading my review, then you get a small sense of how I felt at the end of the movie. Except you didn't pay hard earned money to read this, lucky you. I should have left in the first 5 minutes of the film when I had the impulse.