The "Demon Barber" slashes and sings me to sleep.

Rating: 4/10 (29 January 2008)

Everyone is going crazy for this movie, but, honestly, I hated it. I've only walked out of two movies in my entire life (Nutty Professor II: The Klumps and Burton's last misguided offering, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), but I was very tempted while watching this slapdash piece of crap. I ended up dozing off a couple of times instead.
First of all, Johnny Depp is fantastic, and his singing is excellent. However, even he can't carry this mess of a film. Tim Burton has simply lost his gift, and his visual style here is bland and lazy. Burton's classic work seems to have stunted his growth as a filmmaker, and everything in this film seems recycled from earlier, far superior films. Even the flat where Depp's Todd carries out his work looks exactly like the dwelling that housed Edward Scissorhands. Nods to Sleepy Hollow are very apparent as well, and at times, it almost looks like Burton reused sets and costumes from that film.
The much-hyped gore is, indeed, shocking... The first time you see it. However, Burton repeats the grisly bits of Todd's work so frequently, and with such banal non-zest, that by the third repetition, the impact of these rotely executed scenes shifts from "Oh, that was awesome!" to "Oh, that again?". Burton even uses the same camera angle for each session, so these morbid snapshots of Todd's madness become interchangeable and unmemorable.
With a film this unattractive to look at, the length becomes a factor, and this is especially frustrating since Burton devotes a large chunk of the film to a subplot that never gets resolved. It's highly manipulative to waste significant runtime getting your audience invested in characters, only to leave their plot thread dangling when the credits roll. Adding another layer of needless filler, we have the presence of Mr. Baron Cohen, whose character in the film is essentially worthless, and whose lone contribution to the affair is padding out the running time even more. Further muddling the cast is Burton's nepotistic placement of his lover in the leading female role. Helena Bonham Carter does a fine job, but she doesn't bring anything to the film that scores of other actresses couldn't have pulled off.
While the ending has a nice punch because of the twists that unfold (I'll spare you the spoilers), we can't hold anyone here responsible for that, since the story is not Burton's creation. He chose great material, but a less self-derivative filmmaker would have done so much more with such a gruesome and delightful tale.
The lone piece of true interest in the film is the fine work of the brilliant Alan Rickman, who plays a villain better than anyone in the business. However, even here Burton falters, and Rickman's screen time is disappointingly short, especially considering the importance his character occupies in the overall story.
I've read so many positive reviews of this film that I felt the opposing viewpoint needed to be put out there so that others who felt like they wasted valuable time enduring this laborious drivel wouldn't feel alone.
Burton's body of work is unquestionably impressive, but he's clearly stuck in the past. Since he's obviously looking backwards, I urge you to do the same instead of wasting your time here. The running time of Sweeney Todd could much better be used revisiting Ed Wood, Beetlejuice, or even Mars Attacks, all of which are much better examples of what Burton is capable of as filmmaker.