THIS JERK SAYS

So now that I’ve gotten all my existential-funk business out of the way for a little while, I think it’s time for another movie review.  I just got back from seeing Sweeney Todd, which most of us theater-folk have been salivating about for the last three or four months.  So, did it live up to expectations?

PLOT:

Benjamin Barker had a good life as a barber, with a beautiful wife and daughter.  That is, until a crooked judge had him locked away on false charges, raped Barker’s wife, and took his daughter for his own perverted purposes.  Fifteen years later, Barker has returned to London, taking the guise of ‘Sweeney Todd’ and desperate for revenge.  Add in the somewhat demented pie-shop owner Miss Lovett and a need for meat to boost business, and the two begin making a bloody trail leading to the judge.

STYLE:

I’ve never been shy about the fact that I really, really, really don’t like Tim Burton.  I think he’s a pompous ass who believes himself to be above more capable directors, and has spent recent years just churning out dreck for the Hot Topic kids.  That being said, he’s got a great eye for cinematography, and it shows in this picture.  More importantly, Burton managed to remember that his style is not the star of the movie, and chose instead to keep faithfully close to the intention of the orginal work.  Now if he had only done the same for his old script of Superman Lives…

ACTING:

I’ve never been a huge fan of Johnny Depp (not that I think he’s a bad actor; just overrated), but he turned in a very engaging performance as Barker/Sweeney.  Helena Bonham Carter was great as Miss Lovett, and carried an awful lot of sympathy with her that I never got from the stage show.  Alan Rickman was at his creepy-Alan-Rickman-ly best as Judge Turpin, backed up by Timothy Spall as the even more sleazy Beadle Bamford.  Round out the supporting cast with solid work from Jamie Campbell Bower as Anthony Hope, Ed Sanders as Toby, and a cameo from Sascha Baron Cohen as Pirelli, and you’ve got a pretty nice lineup.  The only one who felt a little off was Jayne Wisener as Johanna, but that might be because she barely opened her mouth at all while singing.

ACTION/VIOLENCE:

This one’s definitely not for the squeamish.  Plenty of slashed throats, bone-crunching falls, splattered brains, and a burning alive.  Oh, and cannibalism!  You can’t do Sweeney Todd without plenty of good ol’ cannibalism.

ROMANCE/T&A:

The one-sided relationship between Sweeney and Miss Lovett played out really nicely.  Depp and Carter have very good chemistry together (which is no surprise considering they’re both in every fucking movie Tim Burton does).  Also, Helena Bonham Carter looks pretty hot in a corset.

FAITHFULNESS TO THE ORIGINAL:

A few songs were cut to save time, but that happens in virtually every adaptation from stage to screen.  Also, both Sweeney and Lovett are supposed to be quite a bit older in the play, but I suppose that can be overlooked.  By and large, the movie keeps very closely to the spirit of the play itself.

GRIPES:

Not a whole lot to complain about here.  The one thing that kept bugging me was that they completely cut out the main title song of the whole show.  One of the most striking parts of the musical was the finale, where everyone Sweeney killed comes back out (still bloody and dead) to sing the song one last time.  And it’s nowhere to be found in the movie.

Other than that, I was satisfied.

OVERALL:

A lot of my friends are avoiding this movie simply because it’s a musical, and as we all know, musicals are “gay.”  If that’s the deal-breaker for you, then you’re really depriving yourself.  Sweeney Todd is one hell of a dark movie, an extremely well-done tale of a man’s self-destruction in his quest for revenge.  It’s brutal when it wants to be, funny when it needs to be, and altogether an extremely entertaining experience.

This jerk’s thumb…is WAY UP