Tim Burton Does it Again

Rating: 10/10 (29 January 2008)

Tim Burton, the famous director of such hit movies as The Nightmare Before Christmas and Ed Wood, has once again shown his demonic directing expertise in the expertly crafted film, Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Was the movie flawless? No. But it was one of the best movies I'd seen that was released in 2007.
Johnny Depp plays the criminally insane, falsely accused Benjamin Barker, who was once a well respected barber of Fleet Street. Returning home after a fifteen year imprisonment, he discovers that his wife has gone, and his daughter (who only saw her true father when she was but a baby) has been adopted by the very man who falsely accused and imprisoned Barker: Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). Swearing that he will get his revenge, Depp teams up with Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), the long forgotten meat pie chef, changes his name to Sweeny Todd, re-starts his barber shop, and gets ready to give people the "Closest shave of their lives." Seeing as this film was a musical, I believe that the first item that should be on our agenda is the musical aspect of the film. Right when the movie started, I could tell that it was a Tim Burton film  the opening song was so dark, and, in a sense, attractively strange, it fit the role of a song in one of Burton's film's perfectly  like a glove, one may say. Once the credits ended, it broke into the very first song of the film, in which Depp starts singing in almost immediately. I have to say, his first song left me a little worried about the rest of his singing in the film  but throughout the movie, his singing actually improved. While Depp did most of the singing, alongside Carter, hearing Rickman and Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) sing was quite a pleasure. What I have noticed in most musical films is that the main actors will mouth the words they are "singing," and someone will sing for them. One of the things I loved about Sweeny was that everyone sang for themselves, and that is a main reason to see the film. You'll actually be able to hear Depp, Rickman, and many others sing in their own voices, and the audacity of this fact should be able to drag anyone into the theater. They may not be the most talented singers in the world, but their singing voices fit in perfectly with their characters.
The only problems that I saw with the film, besides it being a little slow at the start, were the continuity errors  there were just a couple, but at least one was blaringly obvious, if you are paying close enough attention.
And so, I hereby give my first ten-star rating to this excellent piece of work, and say just one more thing: if you want to see an excellent movie with high-rating actors, buckets of blood, and fantastic music  or, you just want to see a movie because you are bored  see this movie, and I guarantee that you will be pleased in the end.