Sweeney Todd is a 2007 musical starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. It was released at the cinema towards the end of 2007 and ended up making an estimated $152,523,164 on a budget of $50,000,000. The critics gave this film brilliant reviews, infact 86% of them liked this film. Sweeney Todd is rated 18 and runs for approximately 116 minutes.
Sweeney Todd is directed by Tim Burton, someone who I'm not really a fan of to be honest. In my opinion he's a bit like Quentin Tarantino in the sense that their style of directing is very unique but most of their films are either brilliant or awful there doesn't seem to be any middle ground. Tim Burton has directed films such as: Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas & Sleepy Hollow, the latter being my favourite film of his. Tim Burton is also famous for being married to Helena Bonham Carter, who co-stars in Sweeney Todd. Burton is renowned for his extensive work with Johnny Depp.
Johnny Depp, besides being one of the sexiest men on the planet is the star of Sweeney Todd along with Helena Bonham Carter. Johnny Depp is probably best known for his portrayal as Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates Of The Caribbean films. In total Depp's films have grossed an estimated 4.7 billion dollars worldwide. Depp's co-star, as previously mention is Helena Bonham Carter, she's famous for appearing in: Fight
Club, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory & Terminator Salvation. Along with the main stars of the film, Alan Rickman (Die Hard), Timothy Spall (Enchanted) & Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G) also star.
Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) is a barber who is falsely accused of killing his wife & daughter, after doing his time he returns to London, this time calling himself Sweeney Todd to find his daughter who infact isn't dead and unleash hell on everyone responsible for the miscarriage of justice.
While back in London Todd meets Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) who realises that Todd is infact Benjamin Barker, she has information concerning the whereabouts of his daughter and is glad to help. Mrs Lovett is famous for selling the worst pies in London and in helping Todd she decides that the people he kills she'll cook to save her money on buying meat. When Todd's first attempt to kill his daughter's kidnappers go pear shaped he decides to practise slitting the throats of innocent victims before he gets another chance to kill his ultimate enemy.
The only reason I bought this DVD was for a friends birthday, usually I stay well clear of musicals and the fact that this stars Johnny Depp made no difference to me. It was still a musical therefore I would probably still hate it! I don't know what it is about them but I've never been able to watch them, films like High School Musical and Grease are films that the majority of the population love but I seem to hate, I just can't stand them. They're too cheesy and the songs are always terrible therefore I end up either turning the film off altogether of fast forwarding the songs which eliminates the entire point in watching musical.
This film was no different. I thought that because this was an adult film I may enjoy it a little bit more than the awful cheese fest that is Mamma Mia & High School Musical but unfortunately this didn't happen. I was lent this by the friend that I bought it for as it's become her favourite film and as we seem to like the same films I thought I've got nothing to lose in giving this a try... turns out I had 116 minutes of my life to lose!
Within about 20 minutes of Sweeney Todd I knew it was going to be one of those pointless films that just drags on & on until the bitter end and that's exactly what it was. It did have a good story, a lot better than lots of other musicals and the fact that this contained graphic violence and adult content made it quite interesting and it's something different. Not different and interesting enough to make me want to watch this again though.
The songs, bar the one about the hair formula are pretty awful. The Elixer hair formula song seemed to stick in my head for days & days and is actually really catchy. The song in question comes into the film about 40 minutes in so you don't have to wait too long for it. The song actually appears twice in the film, the second time is towards the end which I found a nice touch and took my utter boredom away for about 3 minutes! The singing isn't too bad I must say, Johnny Depp is no Justin Timberlake but his voice isn't as bad as I was expecting it to be, neither is Helena Bonham Carter's.
Most of the people I know that have seen this and the majority of reviews I've read about this film are extremely positive but for the life of me I can't understand why. Maybe it's just me being narrow minded but I just cannot see the appeal of musicals at all. If you want to listen to music then that's what iTunes was invented for, not films! My friend, for some insane reason actually loved this film and the soundtrack so much that she ended up downloading it!
Despite it's strong storyline and brilliant array of actors, sadly Sweeney Todd does not avail as a good musical. I believe that without the music this could have been a half decent film if a couple of other changes were made but sadly this film isn't one that I would ever want to see again. Apart from that one song I mentioned earlier (that I embarrassingly ended up downloading) I can't find any redeeming features about this film and I think it's a shame because Johnny Depp is such a fantastic actor and deserves to be given the best types of films to work with instead of this type of tripe.
If you're crazy enough to have bought this terrible film on DVD then the special features you will have will be: Commentary By Tim Burton Musical Mayhem: Sondheim's Sweeney Todd Sweeney Todd Is Alive: The Real History Of The Demon Barber Sweeney's London Recreating Fleet Street Grand Guinol: A Theatrical Tradition Sketchbook
The DVD is available from play.com for £4.99, when I bought it for my friend from play.com it cost me £7.99 so it has gone down in price, just not enough for me to buy it for myself! The Blu-Ray edition is available for £16.99. There is also a special edition 2 disc DVD available for £7.99, however it doesn't list what special features it includes unfortunately.
Of course this is a musical so the soundtrack had to be mentioned didn't it? It's available from play.com for £8.95. The soundtrack includes: No Place Like London The Worst Pies in London Poor Thing My Friends Green Finch & Linnett Bird Johanna Pirelli's Miracle Elixir The Contest Wait Pretty Women Epiphany A Little Priest Johanna God, That's Good! By the Sea Not While I'm Around
I highly recommend skipping straight to number 7 Pirelli's Miracle Elixer as it's by far the catchiest song on the album. I wouldn't recommend buying the entire album as the songs are just as bad as the film itself, if you like certain songs I would suggest downloading them individually.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Music / Performing Arts, Comedy - Director: Trevor Nunn, Geoffrey Posner - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, Parental Guidance - Starring: Duncan Preston, Celia Imrie, Julie Walters, Victoria Wood, Jim Broadbent
Advantages: Excellent performances from a non-singing cast, and oodles of black humour Disadvantages: Not a lot - perhaps the urchin gets a little too much screen time...
Apr 3rd, 2009
very helpful by (100%):
