Flawed, but not a bad flick

Rating: 6/10 (10 May 2008)

I wrote a review of Sweeney Todd immediately after I saw it, and ranted about how embarrassingly terrible it was.
Well, I've since changed my opinion. The film is flawed in several ways, but not nearly as bad as I initially thought.
Depp and Carter do an excellent job in their roles as Sweeney and Lovett, however, I stand by my initial statement as far as their vocals go - they're just not good enough, particularly Carter's. I would think that with his millions of dollars, Depp would have been able to get at least some basics in musical theatre singing. Carter's performance of "worst pies in London" bothered me more than anything in the film. Not only weak vocally, it lacked the energy that it was written to have. But excellent acting on not only Depp and Carter's part, but Rickman and Spall do an excellent job in their roles as Judge Turpin and the Beadle as well.
Anthony and Toby (Bower and Sanders) were not good. Anthony was also very weak vocally, and Toby was just too young and inexperienced to really live his role. I would much rather have seen Toby played by an older, yet petite tenor.
Cohen was funny and charming as Pirelli, though I think he would have been better off incorporating more of his "mock" opera voice - that's the way the part was written to be sung! It's not supposed to be particularly pretty.
So while the film was lacking on the vocal end (Sondheim is not for singers that don't know their stuff!), the solid performances on the acting end come close to making up for the vox.
Oh, and some scenes were overtly gory. It got distracting. And while I understand Burton's cutting of the opening "ballad of sweeney todd", It would have been nice to hear it at the end.