The narrative could have been a bit sharper, but Burton more or less excels in everything else

Rating: 7/10 (22 September 2016)

Benjamin Barker AKA Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) has been in exile for 15 years after he was accused of a crime that he did not commit by Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). Whilst in exile, Judge Turpin has assumed custody of Barker's daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisener) and worst still for Barker, Turpin also intends on marrying Johanna. Upon his return to London, Barker arrives with a new identity and forms a sinister partnership with pie-making widow Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter). Todd sets himself up as the best barber in London, but revenge is really what is on his mind.....
First and foremost I have never seen the Broadway Musical that this film is based upon so my only point of reference is this Tim Burton and Stephen Sondheim collaboration and you know what? I kind of liked it...
At its heart we bear witness to a sort of anti-hero in the form of Barker/Todd - we see our protagonist robbed of 15 years of his life and worse still find him returning to London expecting to walk back into the arms of his wife and pick up his life more or less where he left it (albeit 15 years later). However, Judge Turpin has tarnished that aspect of Todd's life which, in effect, adds insult to injury as far as Todd is concerned. On the one hand this works as Todd is a believable anti-hero, but some of this hard work is undone when Todd opens his barber's shop and starts killing nearly everyone that sits in the barber's chair. It's impressive in the sense that Burton manages to balance many of these scenes by making them dark and menacing and surreal and amusing, but to me a lot of these things made me slightly lose touch with Todd and his cause (it seemed to initially be about one man gaining revenge against another, but in the middle of the film he seemed to become a serial killer in order to prevent a widow from going out of business). As I said all this was very entertaining and was an interesting sub-plot, but totally illogical when scrutinised.
Whilst there's little wrong with the basic story and whilst it does remain enjoyable, Sweeney Todd does tend to meander and go round the houses a bit (there are some scenes which go on for longer than necessary - the rivalry between Todd and Pirelli is one such example). The romance between Anthony and Johanna is a little over-staged - "I feel you Johanna" seemed to have been sung on about 3 separate occasions when one occasion probably would have sufficed.
Still I don't mean to be too harsh on this film as I did like it and Burton's visuals and dark style do provide the film with lots of gusto and energy; Depp and Bonham Carter are wonderful together, Baron Cohen has basically just added another character to his repertoire and Rickman is sublime as the villain of the piece. The only real weak spot in this picture lay with Jamie Campbell Bower who seems rather wooden and lacking in charisma in comparison to his co-stars. Naturally with this being a musical the singing performances are variable (although no-one is intolerably bad).
Ultimately, the dark plotting and black humour combine wonderfully here creating a slightly flawed film, but one with enough of Burton's magic to make it work.