Has Tim Burton Ever Actually Seen the Musical?!?!

Rating: 1/10 (6 July 2019)

I've never seen a director so horribly miss the entire point of the work that they're adapting. The beautiful Sondheim score, which is one of the greatest musical scores of all time, is destroyed. Most of the score is completely gone and the little music that it left is massacred by incompetent singing.
I don't mind the violence. Sweeney Todd should be violent, however, Burton doesn't seem to realize that the musical IS A COMEDY. It's a pitch black English comedy. The humor is gone, replaced by lame, goth, whispering. Depp is wrong for the role in every aspect. He looks wrong and his singing is wrong. Sweeney is supposed to be a large, scary man, with a deep, dark voice. HBC is also wrong for Lovett. Lovett, a role originated by the incredible Angela Lansbury, is supposed to be a funny, neurotic, warm, yet scary woman. Helena isn't any of this. In fact, her only acting choice seems to be to whisper. Her singing is also awful. Alan Rickman is perfect as Judge Turpin, though and is the film's only redeeming quality.
The film is also very ugly. There are a lot of possibilities when you have a piece set in Victorian London, but Burton has chosen to make this film look as bland and bleak as possible.
This film is a total missed opportunity.