Dir. Tim Burton
Writ. John Logan, Stephen Sondheim
Act. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen

I know that I will lose man points but I am a musical theater fan. In fact I am a big Stephen Sondheim fan. This is easily my favorite musical of his and the material is perfectly suited to be turned into a film by the macabre Tim Burton. What surprised me about the film is how good Johnny Depp is at singing. I have always liked him as an actor but this film just shows how gifted of an artist he is as well as an actor. Easily my favorite film of the year, Sweeney Todd is a must see.

Sweeney Todd a.k.a. Benjamin Barker, played by Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean,) returns to London after being sent to jail on a false charge by Judge Terpin, played by Alan Rickman (Die Hard,) who was in love with Todd's wife. Upon discovering that his wife poisoned herself, and his child now a ward of the judge, Todd opens a barbershop above Mrs. Lovett's pie shop, played by Helena Bonham Carter (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,) and practices on the clients of London hoping to get his hands on the Judge one time.

This musical is just a wonderful work from Sondheim. It is just some amazing musical writing, which to me shows why he is so much better than Andrew Lloyd Weber. The first musical number between Todd and Lovett where they are singing different lyrics to the same music and it was so fluid that it was wonderful to watch. The best example of this was the musical number "Pretty Woman" in which Todd and Terpin are singing about the same girl and using different time and tempo. Just some amazing writing by Sondheim.

Johnny Depp was amazing as Todd. Being able to sing Sondheim is not an easy task and I thought he did it extremely well. He stayed in character and delivered the emotion that is necessary for the roll. His acting of course was wonderful and he was dark with his character and enjoyable. In fact everyone in the cast was perfectly cast. Ed Sanders, who played the little boy Toby, was very good and I can only imagine that he has or will have a long career on Broadway.

If I have to find something to complain about, I will mention that there were two scenes in the film that do not translate well from the stage. The first one is the end of the song where Todd is singing to his razors and Lovett is singing to Todd. The last line of the song is spoken and Todd is holding the razorblade and says, "At last my arm is complete again." Very good in the movie but there was a sense of fear when shown on the stage that I don't think could be reproduced on the big screen. The other scene is even more glaring in that it is one of the more recognizable scenes in Broadway. When Lovett and Todd are singing to each other about the plan of using the men that Todd kill as meat for Lovett's meat pies, they dance around each other and then stop at the middle of the stage, Todd holding a meat cleaver and Lovett holding a rolling pin arm in arm looking up and smiling almost insanely. Burton did the best he could reproducing this in the film but it could not match the emotion of the scene on stage.

Burton was the perfect director for this film and his attention to detail made this film. I really enjoyed how he slowly changed Toby's character from being a young living boy to be suspicious of Todd and blinded by his love of Mrs. Lovett to her part in the roll. The final scene in which Toby comes out of the sewer, just as white and pale as Todd and filled with hate and vengeance toward Todd was wonderful to see and a great choice by Burton.

Even if you don't like musicals, there are many reasons to see this film. It will get Academy Award consideration and hopefully Depp we get the award he so very deserves.

Brian - the Naked Gun