Tim Burton takes on a Broadway masterpiece

Rating: 8/10 (24 January 2008)

Tim Burton is one of my favorite movie directors, Stephen Sondheim is my favorite Broadway composer/lyricist, while Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are among my favorite actors. So you can imagine how eagerly i was awaiting to enjoy this version of Sweeney Todd, the Broadway masterpiece, on the big screen. Well, was it up to my expectations? The first time i saw this movie, i was expecting too much because i was already so familiar with the stage version. However, the second time i saw it, i appreciated it a lot more. I had another chance to examine the movie's strengths, which there are indeed. The look is classically graphic, while the orchestrations involve Paul Gemignani and Jonathan Tunick - two experts on works by Sondheim. Yes, some numbers were unnecessarily cut off or shortened, including No Place Like London and Ah Miss!, both of which would have nicely added a softer, more humanistic, touch to the otherwise relentlessly gloomy proceedings. The By the Sea number was also sadly shortened and poorly edited. Although A Little Priest was not my favorite number of the musical, it was the best presented in the movie despite it also having been shortened. The acting is overall really superb, even if Helena Bonham Carter was a little too subdued as Mrs Lovett, although that makes you really feel for her character. But then, Mrs Lovett is supposed to be vile, and unlike Angela Lansbury's stage incarnation who spits her words out while chirpily enjoying manipulating Sweeney Todd, here Bonham Carter tries to sing melodically and as a result, she deprives the character of the oomph befitting a lead role. Nevertheless, she is still deliciously good, while Johnny Depp is amazing. The film is superbly edited too. And the way the blood in the movie spurts and gushes out is really reminiscent of the horror movies of old, which Burton and Depp supposedly love.