Not Your Average Musical!

Rating: 7/10 (15 November 2008)

The movie opens with what I can only describe as a classic Tim Burton style, as the camera zooms through the streets of Old London. With such a Burton "signature" you have to know that you're in for something of an unusual movie - and you get it. This is, in fact, a very odd combination of things. It's a musical about a demonic mass-murdering barber and somehow in the midst of it all it also has a few scenes that are actually quite funny - for humour I think right off of Mrs. Lovett's "The Worst Pies In London" near the start of the movie. Johnny Depp as the "demon barber" Sweeney Todd and Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett are excellent and performed well together, and the supporting performances were probably topped by Timothy Spall's go as the Beadle. The story of Todd's quest for murderous revenge against the judge who stole his young wife from him years before moves along pretty nicely (although I have to admit that it took some effort for me to get through the first few scenes for some reason) and most of the songs are well performed. As for weaknesses, it seemed obvious to me for some reason who the old lady who kept popping up was, so that came as no particular surprise to me and in all honesty I thought Burton went a bit overboard with the bloodiness of the murder scenes - although it is Tim Burton we're talking about. There was also that strangely off putting (to me) opening couple of scenes that failed to pull me in, although in the end I'm glad I stuck with this. For the most part it was a lot of fun. 7/10