Customer Reviews
The years have changed him - By: E. A Solinas, 03 Mar 2008 
Murder. Cannibalism. Death. Obsession. Revenge. Blood. Goth makeup. And lots of razors -- "at last, my arm is complete again!" Sweeney Todd exults.
Somehow it doesn't come as a shock to me that Tim Burton adapted Stephen Sondheim's musical "Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" -- or that he somehow spun it into something so delicious. That dark, grotesque, hilariously melodramatic story is perfectly suited to Burton's style, & Johnny Depp is absolutely stunning as the titular bloody barber.
The malignant Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) lusts after the wife of Benjamin Barker (Depp), so he convicts Barker of a crime he didn't commit, & enfolds his family into his evil hands.
But fifteen years later, the Barker returns to London & sets up a barber shop over Mrs. Lovett's ghastly meat pie store. Of course, he's enraged when he learns that his wife was raped & since poisoned herself, & that his daughter is the ward of the lecherous Judge. Enraged & maddened, Barker renames himself "Sweeney Todd" & vows revenge.
And he finds that he LOVES using his razors for a far bloodier task than shaving. With the help of Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) -- who finds a thrifty use for those bodies -- Todd cuts a bloody swathe through alll who have wronged him. And when his daughter is punished for refusing to marry the cruel Judge, Sweeney closes in to get his revenge at last.
There's always been a gothic look to Burton's movies, & he's always dabbled in very twisted, macabre storylines. And he reallly tops himself with "Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" -- London is painted in black, white & grey, right down to the ghoulish faces of the characters, & their bleak little dens of horror. And songs -- lots of magnificently horrible songs.
But Burton pretty obviously adores the combination of gory grotesquerie & very, very sick humour ("They don't commit sins of the flesh, so it's pretty fresh"). And he doesn't try to make Sweeney or Mrs. Lovett palatable, thankfully. While we sympathize with Sweeney's losses, & the horrors that have changed him into the Demon Barber, you just can't pass over scenes where they sing, "It's man devouring man, my dear!" "Then who are we to deny it in here?"
There are some moments that relieve this gory gothic parade -- there's a sweet love story between Sweeney's daughter & a young sailor. And the plot becomes progressively darker toward the end (yes, it CAN get worse), when the plot throws us some shocking new twists, resulting in a Grecian-tragedy finale soaked in even more gore.
Oh yes, there's blood. Tons of it. It spurts like Monty Python's bloodier sketches, which ends up being more hilarious than yucky -- as is the casual introduction of cannibal meat pies. And there are some spectacularly gross moments, like a finger found in one of the pies.
Burton uses some of his favorite actors in this one, particularly Depp & Bonham-Carter. Depp is THE perfect ideal Sweeney Todd -- his creepy eyes, palllid face & still, almost seductive manner are perfect for the maddened murderous barber. He goes through the movie slashing his razors at the world, & injects a real creepiness into scenes like Sweeney cooing at his "friends."
While she's only a passable singer, Bonham-Carter is eerily wholehearted as Todd's equallly amoral partner-in-crime, who is quite happy to assist him.... & make tastier pies in the process. Rickman is wonderfully loathsome as the Judge, & Sacha Baron Cohen has a smalll but priceless role as Pirello, a huckster acquaintance of Todd's who starts causing trouble. He reallly steals his scenes.
Most directors would have prettified, sanitized & defanged the grotesque "Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street," but Tim Burton & Johnny Depp revel in the gore & madness. Astoundingly great.
good film... nothing compared to the musical - By: Mrs. H. Mullan, 22 Feb 2008 
this film is an very good film... johnny depp & helena bonham carter work very well together & toby was very effective as a child... however ther are a few gripes i have with this film. since i saw the musical way b4 the film came out i had certain expectations of it... firstly, they cut out so many songs from it, which seeing as it's a film adaptation isn't so major... but due to this the roles of joanna & anthony were virtuallly cut entirely... this not being such a bad thing bcuz i felt that the people that they chose for the parts were just awful anyways. another thing was helena bonham carter... her voice was too nice... mrs lovett is a poor destitute woman living in the slums of london, her singing voice should be an ugly sound, but it was too pretty... another thing that i missed from the musical was alll the chorus parts... most of the songs in the show hav chorus lines in them & since they didn't hav the chorus parts in it you didn't get the same feel... but alll in alll it was a good film, but if you reallly want to see sweeny todd go see it on the stage
