It managed to turn me to the dark side for a little while there...

Rating: 6/10 (24 May 2008)

I am not a big fan of either Tim Burton or Broadway musicals, so a combination of the two sounded VERY unappealing to me and I avoided this film for a while. Just a as expected, when I finally sat down to watch it, for the first twenty minutes or so I could hardly stand it, and was very tempted to just stop the DVD player and forget about it. But I decided to hold out until my beloved Sacha Baron Cohen showed up (I'm a big fan of the guy), just to see him, and then the plot started to kick in, and slowly but surely I found myself having to admit I was being entertained (apart from Cohen's appearance, the mid-movie song about the various professions was another high point). The movie indeed gets better and better as it advances to its tragic, macabre climax, and that final image before the credits was rather haunting. So, still no masterpiece in my book, but I'll concede I'm glad I saw it.