The critics must have seen a different movie. Surely.

Rating: 1/10 (30 December 2007)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Last week a movie opened in theaters that I had been very curious about for quite some time. It was "Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street", as the avid reader will already have discovered from subtle clues laid about the text so far, and the concept was really quite novel to me; a shlocky horror-comedy-musical about a barber who apparently killed his customers or something. I need not tell fellow fans of the offbeat and the shlock how much potential this has as a concept, a potential classic in fact, but I was skeptical, so I waited this long to see it, figuring that any really bad points about it would have long since been whined about by now, and that if it was a generally bad movie I would have had it disrecommended to me. I even read some reviews, which I never trusted very much, but they all seemed to hail it as a godly genius masterwork. Heck, its www.rottentomatoes.com rating was a very good 87%, six percent higher than 'I Am Legend', which I saw last week and adored, despite it's small flaws, so I decided to go see it last night.
And woe is me, I'll never get those two hours and ten dollars back.
From the very beginning, it's flaws are extremely obvious. The singing, which I won't even call off-tune because that would mean there was a hint of proper tune to begin with, is performed poorly, and at many parts completely drowned out by the background music ( oh wait, does it seem like that's a complaint? ). The lyrics are completely forced, have radically different syllable counts from line to line, and amazingly repetitive ( "...and she was beautiful" was repeated probably 40 times during the movie ). Not only is it bad, it's completely random. I like a properly executed musical very much and I've seen and listened to quite a few, so disagree if you must but don't dismiss my opinion to simple lack of education on the matter. I mean it's completely random and doesn't really serve a purpose. It isn't more expressive, it's not extravagant and large-scale, I really felt the whole way through the movie would have been far more enjoyable without it.
But my problems with this movie don't stop at the audio, oh no, they spread out to the realm of video almost just as much. The outfits and places I will admit are indeed stylized, and even at points sort of cool, but it really bugged me, even for a time-piece of a very dirty, crappy period for England, that such reputable people as a judge would go see a barber who has apparently never washed his work-space, and for that matter, despite claiming to offer " the closest shave you've ever had" sports a five o' clock shadow. But that's excusable. You know, style and all that. What is not acceptable is the very lame look of the intro credits and that scene ( or where there two? ) where the camera flies around the city. Basically, the prior scene has 3D effects that would have been at home in a 1995 teen shlock crap fest, and the latter looks like one of those 3D puzzles you can buy. And the blood. Oh lord the blood! Aside from the fact that every death in the movie but two was by throat-slitting, which is an alright movie death but amazingly overused here, the violence was completely ridiculous. The blood honestly looked exactly like V8 and gushed like fountains, almost like in Kill Bill, except it didn't look stylized and cool. It looked cheap. And I don't care what you say, there was no style there at all.
"But Seby, you'd surely say, that's all well and good, the style is total crap to you, but surely there must be substance? " and frankly, there is. The execution is the problem. The story is pretty interesting actually. The eponymous barber gets back to London after fifteen years of forced march brought on to him because the judge who sent him away had an eye for his wife. He naturally wants revenge, and goes to his ancient barber shop where one Mrs. Lovett now has a shop that sells "the worst pies in London". One thing leads to another and he ends up setting up his barber shop anew upstairs of Mrs. Lovett's meat pie shop, where he establishes himself as the best barber in London ( in by far the best scene of the movie, a great barber-off against Borat himself, Sasha Baren Cohen, here in outlandish garb and hilarious fake accent. ) and, as reputation means nothing to him, he starts slitting his patrons' throats so that Mrs. Lovett, disgusting woman that she is, can use them to make far better meat pies. All the while, some young nameless ( his name was probably mentioned, but it seemed very unimportant ) fellow is trying to seduce Sweeney's daughter who now lives with the judge fellow. This part seemed very tacked on really. And I know, this seems like a good story! It truly does to me! But frankly, as it was, I can't understand how anyone enjoyed it. It wasn't whimsical enough not to be disgusting, and not serious enough to not be whimsical. And the music once again did not fit.
Please, do not buy the hype. Don't pay to see this movie. Do yourself and whatever shred of artistry is left in film-making a favor.
-Seby Duguay