Burton slits Sondheim's throat.

Rating: 3/10 (24 January 2008)

Stephen Sondheim's musical "Sweeney Todd" explores moral dualism -- the belief of the coexistence or conflict between the "benevolent" and the "malignant", such as a conflict between good and evil. Sondheim expresses this in many ways, chief among them is his extensive use of counterpoint. Counterpoint is "the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm, and interdependent in harmony". The term comes from the Latin 'punctus contra punctum' or "note against note". Counterpoint is often used in musicals, especially in songs that try to compare or contrast two or more characters' views. As written and originally conceived and staged, the musical counterpoint in "Sweeney Todd" mirrors not only the difference of views between the characters, but the conflict of views within each character.
Tim Burton's film "Sweeney Todd" fails because it has eliminated the emotional and psychological counterpoint, and with it any and all depth of character. Instead of "note against note", Burton offers "one note only".
One of the key elements to what makes the musical so powerful and dynamic is the counterpoint between and within Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. On the outside, Sweeney is dark, brooding, vengeful and single mindedly violent. On the inside, he is a wronged man, in complete and spectacular anguish over the loss of his daughter and the death of his young bride. This dual conflict of morality is illustrated during Sweeney's powerful "Epiphany" when he sings "I will have vengeance... I will have salvation!" His underlying basic human goodness is the reason we care about Sweeney and what makes him a tragic character.
Mrs. Lovett is his mirror opposite. On the outside, (originally embodied by Angela Lansbury) Mrs. Lovett is bright, quirky, colorful and upbeat. She reminds you of your sweet ol' grandma. Hiding away on the inside however, is the real demon of Fleet Street - she lies and manipulates Sweeney into committing bloody murder, then comes up with the ghastly idea of baking the dead bodies into meat pies.
Burton's Sweeney is nothing but vengeful, his Mrs Lovett is as dark, brooding and humorless as Sweeney, his Judge Turpin shows no conscience (due to the cutting of Turpin's one musical number in which he expresses his personal morality battle), his Toby is a cute and clever Oliver-esquire street urchin, rather than the original 'mentally-challenged' Toby who is smarter than he appears. This theme is everywhere in the Sondheim musical - Sweeney Todd is really Benjamin Barker, Adolfo Pirelli is actually a Brit masquerading as the Italian UberBarber who disguises pee and ink as hair tonic, Anthony rescues Joanna from an insane asylum by disguising himself as a wigmaker, Joanna is then disguised as a male sailor, dead bodies are disguised as meat pies... it goes on and on... and in the end, the Tim Burton film is disguised as the Stephen Sondheim musical, but is ultimately revealed to be the empty, shallow film it is.