Very disappointed

Rating: 1/10 (5 February 2008)

I suppose in many ways I should've found out more about this movie, rather than just thinking it looked good on the trailer and going to see it. Still, that's the way it went, so here goes the review.
First thing I noted, just from the opening credits, was the Burtonesque style. This had me immediately concerned as I'm not a huge fan of his work. Why not? Well, I do find his work is very much style over substance. His films look good, but I've never been over enamoured with anything else. Burton films are like Windows Vista; looks good but ultimately you want to leave it alone. Okay, so I've paid good money, I'll sit it out and hope it's more Beetlejuice than Corpse Bride.
Second thing I noted was that it was a musical. This surprised me. Not being the sort to frequent stage shows, I hadn't realised that there was a stage musical to base it on. Ah. Still, it might work, this sort of thing has been done before. I'll give it a chance.
Well, it didn't work. It was very typically Burton style over substance, yet again. London looked gloriously slummy and very definitely suited the mood, in much the same way the Michael Keaton "Batman" recreated Gotham as a dark place. I didn't like that film, either, for much the same style over substance reason. After a few minutes of admiring how the mood has been captured, you're bored and want the film to entertain.
But there was worse to come.
For a start, Johnny Depp's cockney accent drifted into Jack Sparrow. Every time it happened - and it did so a lot - it grated on me, purely because Captain Jack is not a macabre character, and hearing that voice detracted from that required for Benjamin Barker's unstable mental state. I wanted someone who would be full of malice and ill-will generated by gross injustice, and I ended up seeing a hapless pirate with delusions of grandeur. Not good.
Then there was Helena Bonham-Carter, playing the role of a slightly unhinged woman with mad hair and poor complexion. Ooh, what a surprise! I'm sure the point was that there was supposed to be a chemistry between Sweeney and Mrs Lovett, but there was nothing. Nothing at all. I know there's supposed to be a degree of unrequited love on Mrs Lovett's part, but in this she was moping round him like a lovesick teenager, getting nothing back.
If this is based on the musical, then I don't want to see it. It seemed as though the songs were purely "sung dialogue" rather than actual music scores. In many cases, the songs didn't even seem to fit. Perhaps there should be more to them, maybe there is in the stage show, but on screen it was awful. And we can't even blame the medium either, as Grease transferred to the silver screen very well.
Then there was the gore. Talk about obvious! After the first couple of slashings, it was very tiresome and unnecessary. Burton really could do with taking lessons from Tarantino on how to do gory violence; we all know the scene from Reservoir Dogs, where Mr. Blond cuts the ear off the police officer whilst dancing to "Stuck in the middle with you". We never see the act, just hear the screams, which makes it all the more sickening. The mind can do more justice to implied violence than the camera ever can with visuals.
The film was too long, too. How much of it was entirely necessary, I wonder? There was one massive plot diversion which was just a complete waste of time. Making an audience invest in a substantial subplot and not follow it through to a reasonable conclusion is extremely irritating.
And to cap it all, the cherry on the icing on the excrement cake, Alan Rickman wasn't even as good as he usually is as an arch villain. Granted, it's a change not to see him overact, but in this case the role positively demanded it.
It gets a half star from me purely because there were a couple of lines which made me chuckle and because Timothy Spall played a good weaselly character. I score it a 1 as that's as low as I can go.