Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Blu-ray)

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Note: In the following joint Blu-ray review John, Jason, and Dean all provide their opinions on the movie, with John also writing up the Video, Audio, Extras, and Parting Shots.

The Film According to John:
I came to the Blu-ray edition of Tim Burton's 2007 adaptation of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" almost cold. By that, I mean I had never seen the movie, never heard the musical soundtrack of Stephen Sondheim's Broadway show, and never read any of the film reviews. Beyond my having heard about the movie casually, my single connection to it was when a friend mentioned that Burton's version disappointed him. The friend had seen the stage production several times, locally and in New York, and he thought the film lacked the spark, the energy, and the singing talent of the live presentations he had seen. Although I had nothing with which to compare the motion picture, I'd have to agree with his assessment. While there is a lot to admire in the film, it comes across as somewhat dull and dispiriting, and ultimately dissatisfying.

We all know the story line, and "dispiriting" is certainly one of the emotions it's meant to evoke. This horror musical is no merry romp, to be sure, so we must give credit to Sondheim, Burton, and screenwriter John Logan for not trying to turn it into some kind of silly comic opera. There is, in fact, very little humor in this black comedy beyond its sardonically grisly premise.

Anyway, the story has been kicking around England for several hundred years, sort of a traditional English boogeyman tale involving (at least here in Burton's movie) a young, nineteenth-century London barber (portrayed by Burton's favorite actor, Johnny Depp, his hair in full Edward Scissorhands disarray) with a beautiful wife (Laura Michelle Kelly) and baby. Todd is a barber whom an evil judge wrongfully imprisons, whose wife subsequently commits suicide, and whose daughter becomes the ward of the very judge who caused it all to happen in the first place! After fifteen years in prison, the barber returns to London with only one thing on his mind--revenge. Completely unhinged, he takes up residence in his old quarters above a meat-pie shop, where, with the help of the pie shop owner, Mrs. Lovett, he proceeds to slit throats, grind his victims into tiny pieces, and throw them into the pies. He hopes someday to get the judge into his barber's chair. Meanwhile, the pie shop thrives. There's a certain lurid whimsy to these events.

OK, it's not exactly your typical "Oklahoma" or "Gigi" musical plot of yore. It's more like Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera," but far darker and bloodier. The story line itself goes back to at least 1785, and variations of it have appeared periodically over the years, the first motion picture version showing up in the mid 1920s. Sondheim knew a good thing when he saw it, set the story to music, and brought it to Broadway in 1979 where it won over audiences and critics alike.

I have no objection to the movie's subject matter or to the idea of turning the old English legend into a macabre musical; nor do I have any objection to the acting or singing in the movie. Burton apparently chose his cast based on their thespian abilities first and foremost and then asked all of them to do their own singing, even though most of them had never sung in a picture before. They do fine, but, then, the nature of the music is such that it hardly puts a strain on anybody's vocal capabilities. Mostly, the cast members follow Robert Preston's advice in "The Music Man" when he says, ironically, that "singing is just sustained talking." It worked for Preston, as it did for Rex Harrison in the stage and screen productions of "My Fair Lady" and Richard Burton in the stage production of "Camelot." It works here, too, for Johnny Depp as Todd, Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Alan Rickman as the evil Judge Turpin, Timothy Spall as the town Beadle, Sacha Baron Cohen as a rival barber, Jamie Campbell Bower as Todd's young friend, and Jane Wisener as Todd's now-fifteen-year-old daughter.

No, what I objected to was not the excessively bloodstained plot or the acting or the singing; it was the blandness of Sondheim's music, over which Burton had little control. There was a time when you would come out of a musical whistling or humming any number of memorable tunes. That notion seems to have gone out of style. Now, musicals either have one good tune and beat it to death, or, like "Sweeney Todd," have no memorable tunes at all, just "sustained talking." I'll admit there are some clever lyrics to a couple of the songs, like "If the politicians are oily, they're served with a doily," but most of the time the words are simply pieces of ordinary dialogue set to less-than-ordinary, singsongy melodies. Call me old fashioned, but if a movie is going to sing at me, at least let me enjoy it.

The real star of the show is its look, thanks in equal measure to director Tim Burton, production designer Dante Ferretti, and set decorator Francesca Lo Schiavo, the latter two winning Oscars for their work. Together, they create a properly atmospheric opening title sequence evoking the film's dark tone and bloody premise. Then they recreate the grit and grime of nineteenth-century London down to the last dirty, dismal detail of the city and its inhabitants, with the movie's drained, monotone color adding to the illusion of despair. If only Burton had shown as much subtlety and inventiveness in the bloodletting department as he did in his depiction of London and then let his audience use a bit more imagination instead of his showing us so much gore, he might have made a movie as scary as it is atmospheric.

You'll find, though, a nice turn by Sacha Baron Cohen as a quack barber who sells miracle hair tonics on the side. His Rossini-like song during a shaving contest is about the only number with any spirit, and it practically steals the show. Oddly, a bright and colorful flashback sequence doesn't have the same impact, maybe because it's too far out of place.

There is much to like in Burton's "Sweeney Todd" and much not to like, a rather hit-and-miss affair. Burton still has a wonderfully creative touch, but here he dwells so much on the morbid and macabre, he hardly gives us time to breathe any fresh air. Combined with a dreary musical score and the fact that most audiences today don't care all that much for any type of musical, "Sweeney Todd" could be a tough sell to mainstream home audiences.

John's film rating: 6/10

The Film According to Jason:
The indelible stamp of director Tim Burton permeates every scene of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," taking elements of all his prior films and combining them into a single production. Based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim, Johnny Depp plays the titular character, back in London after being incarcerated for years. He learns his beloved wife Lucy is (supposedly) dead and daughter Johanna the ward of a malicious judge, Turpin (Alan Rickman, Professor Snape from "Harry Potter"). When the former and future barber falls in with the slightly insane and immensely dirty Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), they concoct a plan to expand her flailing meat-pie business: Use only the freshest ingredients….

As with most movie musicals, it helps to know the source material before going into "Sweeney Todd." Know the songs and the storyline, the characters and the setting. Trust me on that. Nearly every piece of dialogue is sung (no surprise) and, most of the time, the instrumental score behind the lyrics takes center stage, making the audience fight for every single line. A slight volume adjustment in both the lyrics and score would have helped the film no end. Surprisingly, even when the dialogue is hard to follow, Burton's visuals convey the action enough to follow along.

It is, therefore, not surprising that Burton cast Depp in the leading role. After all, their five previous collaborations built to this moment. There's the gothic noir look to "Corpse Bride;" the serious, morbid Depp of "Sleepy Hollow;" a character who looks remarkably like "Edward Scissorhands;" the feeling of not knowing what the man can do next, a la "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory;" and "Ed Wood's camp sensibility. As Sweeney Todd, Depp latches onto the man's hurt, drawing from it the strength to become a cold-blooded killer by the end of the story. He has, inarguably, the saddest looking eyes; strong, yet devastated, as if reaching out for someone to cling to. It's a look Depp has perfected over the year: a wounded puppy in search of a savior.

As his foil, Mrs. Lovett is instantly smitten with him, even being delusional enough to think the pair can continue their deception in perpetuity. She's equally love starved, hence a whimsical dreamlike sequence which is so jarringly out of place, it fits into the context of the film. The main story, though, is that of Johanna--shockingly--considering how little screen time she gets. Johanna is the sole driving force in Todd's life, the ultimate goal to which his murderous ways will lead. It's a joke, then, to see the story play itself out with no real resolution. No, we don't expect the joyous reunion between father and daughter some will want. There's just…nothing.

There's a similar problem with the Todd-Turpin antagonism. The two share only a pair of scenes in the entire film, neither of which builds their relationship. Instead of showing the audience early on how happy Todd and Lucy are, we're given a quick montage with sing-over (like a voice-over, get it?). Why does Turpin arrest Todd? He's just a bad man. We get that, and it turns out to be the simplest way to paint the character. The issue is that Turpin doesn't have a personality; he's a one-note villain. Johanna is a one-note heroine and the ending turns into a giant mess because of it. (No pun intended.)

The audience never develops an emotional connection to any of the characters, let alone the crazy beggar lady Lovett continually shoos away from the shop. And because of that, we never make the inevitable (and clichéd?) connection until its too late. Moviegoers should be crying by the time the credits roll; instead, we can't help but roll our eyes, remember this is not an original production, and enjoy it for what it is.

Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to rake screenwriter John Logan over the coals--even a little bit--for his role in draining the emotion out of the film. But I can't. Not in any good conscience, anyway. The man may be responsible for "Star Trek: Nemesis," but he had to work with preexisting material. As with "The Golden Compass" or "300" from earlier this year, any deviation from the source was going to be met by loud groans if not outright protests from fans of the musical. That doesn't mean, however, all the emotion had to sucked out of the picture, almost like the absence of color on the nearly black-and-white images on the screen.

One area that truly excels, though, (besides Depp and Carter, of course) is the production design. Designer Dante Ferretti, doubtlessly in conjunction with set decorator Francesca Lo Schiavo, Burton, and a crew of computer artists, has created a version of London that looks like Gotham City's historical cousin. It's a gritty, dirty place, mired in soot and despair. Doors look like they can come off their hinges at any time, while a potential hazard could be waiting around every corner. The look of London feeds directly into the character of Sweeney Todd: dark, desperate, unrelenting, foreboding.