Take one English folklore legend, drop him into a bleak 18th century landscape, add slightly too much gratuitous violence and put it all to song. What have you got? I have no idea. Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street follows the plight of the eponymous Sweeney Todd who returns home from prison to find a lost wife, an incarcerated daughter, and the formidable bosom of Helen Bohnam Carter’s pie making Mrs Lovett. Sweeney decides to exact some revenge on the purveyor of his misery, Judge Turpin, by opening a barbershop as cover for his bloodthirsty intentions. Tim Burton, telling the story of a hero figure turning a dark past to his advantage, all to a wretched gothic backdrop is very much un-chartered territory for the dark director. Nothing at all like Batman or Edward Scissorhands or Sleepy Hollow or Nightmare Before Christmas. Well, this time Burton has looked far and wide for an original cast to breath some new life into his work, with God Father to his son Johnny Depp starring and fiancé Helen Bohnam Carter in the female lead. Ok, well at least there’s something new, this release is after all a musical, very musical. In fact, it’s so musical that one could be forgiven for a tentative chuckle in disbelief at just how musical it is. Almost every scene is the setting for some epic number about anything from knives to pies, resulting in the complete dialog of the film coming in at roughly a file page. Now that I think about it, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, and The Nightmare Before Christmas were also musicals, weren’t they? The film is beautifully lit and expertly shot with two strong central performances from Depp and Carter. There is also welcome comic relief in the form of Sasha Baron Cohen and the pace is brisk when not hampered by yet another hammy song about a lost this, or a found that. Amid the wincingly brutish violence, which makes a regular appearance throughout, the story is somewhat compelling; it is almost 200 years old after all, and all things being said, it still has the touch of quality and grotty intrigue that usually accompanies Burton’s films. Tim Burton fans will probably love another helping of his now tried and tested formula and expert use of dark eye make up. But unfortunately, the lack of true originality and the regular tedium of the endless singing will likely leave the rest wishing they were on the business end of Sweeney’s razor. (DW)
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Female Acts To The Four...
