Another hit from Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, this time a slasher musical!

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2010)

By the time this very dark musical came to the silver screen in 2007, I had seen most of the previous Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaborations, and had seen their last one before this, 2005's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", in the theatre, but that didn't happen with this one. I first watched this film on DVD two years ago this month, unfamiliar with the play it's based on, and I thought it was pretty good, but had trouble really getting into it, which was too often the case for me with movies around that time. I wrote a review of it soon after seeing it for the first time, giving it a 7/10, but recently deleted that review, confident that a second viewing would be better, and I was right. After seeing it twice, both times on a rented DVD copy, I can rate it no lower than 8/10.
A man once known as Benjamin Barker returns to London in Victorian-era England after fifteen years of exile and hard labour for a crime he didn't commit. Now under the new identity of Sweeney Todd, he is obviously very bitter upon his return, and does not think much of the town! He soon enters a pie shop on Fleet Street, run by Mrs. Lovett, who tells him about the vacant room upstairs, which happens to be his old apartment! Mrs. Lovett also tells him that his wife is dead and his daughter is being held captive by the evil Judge Turpin, the man who sent him away! Sweeney opens a barber shop above Mrs. Lovett's pie shop, where he plans his revenge on Judge Turpin by luring him in and cutting his throat! He nearly succeeds, but not quite, and after this, the barber plans his revenge on the town by luring many customers into his shop and cutting their throats, hoping to get another chance to do it to Judge Turpin!
Since this is a Tim Burton project, it's no surprise that the visuals are dark and very pleasing to the eye, which is one of the things that make this film so good and memorable. There are also many outstanding performances, once again with Johnny Depp as the protagonist, plus another talented Burton recast, Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, and other talented actors such as Alan Rickman as Judge Turpin, controversial prankster Sacha Baron Cohen as Pirelli (a mean-spirited barber who abuses his child assistant, Tobias), and several others. Unlike most of Burton's movies, this is a musical, but the talented cast members generally have decent voices, even if they weren't known to sing in films before this. Some of the songs could have been better written, such as "Poor Thing", and "My Friends" (Sweeney Todd sings to his razor in this song), I didn't care much for Jayne Wisener's (Johanna, the main character's daughter) high-pitched singing voice, and I found that there was a little too much singing at times, but for the most part, the songs are very strong. There's also lots of tension throughout most of the film, and some humour, such as the "Worst Pies In London" part, and Pirelli's fraudulent elixir, which Mr. Todd says is "p&#@."
There are obviously those who strongly dislike Tim Burton's films in general, and if you're one of them, this version of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" probably wouldn't be an exception. His dark style is not for everybody. If you're a fan of the filmmaker and like his films in which Johnny Depp plays the lead role, there's a lot of the usual here, but unlike any of the duo's previous live action movies, this one is a musical, and you may or may not like that. I also can't forget to mention the throat cutting scenes. They don't start until after a while, but there are a bunch of them, and they tend to be very graphic. This is the reason for the R rating, but even many adults would find it hard to keep their eyes on the screen during these scenes. I'm glad I was warned about these parts before seeing the film! However, for those who can handle the gore and are not expecting a happy movie, this could be something good to watch.