Sweeney Todd

“Sweeney Todd” is proof that the musical, and perhaps particularly the musical theater, might have been the right medium all along for Tim Burton.  In a genre where being overdramatic is a virtue, he is a master.   Only Baz Luhrman (and maybe Jean-Pierre Jeunet) even comes close to his skills in over-the-top art direction.  His ability to create a mood and a sense of place at the same time are a wonder to behold.

There’s no place like London, especially when it comes to the kind of gothic macabre tone  Burton is famous for.  Johnny Depp plays the title character, a brooding barber out to get revenge on the people who took away his wife and daughter.  When revenge is delayed indefinitely,  he decides that “they all deserve to die,” all meaning everyone in London, or maybe the world.   He strikes up a lucrative relationship with the seductive vixen downstairs (Helena Bonham Carter) that involves the sale of (gulp) meat pies.  Depp and Carter are certainly better actors than singers, but they are sufficient in their cantatory roles.  It helps that the material is more often muted and brooding than soaring and exhilarating.

While Depp plays Todd as a pretty straightforward cutthroat, driven by grief and revenge and unable to think of anything else, Bonham Carter strives to give Mrs. Lovett a bit more likability.   Heaven knows what attracts her to Todd, but from the moment she lays eyes on him, she’s trapped in his gaze.  She makes an effort to bring him around to some more normal way of life, but when it’s clear that his mind is consumed with blood and more blood, she makes the leap into his rage with chilling abandon.

While there’s plenty of blood and brains onscreen, it’s pretty campy, and not the stuff of nightmares.   Much more disturbing is the look in Depp’s eyes as he sings an ode to his razors.  There’s no lack of slashing and burning, but as the blood spurts and squirts,  you’ll be thinking how much it looks like ketchup, or Kool-Aid.   You might not laugh, but you’ll certainly cackle.

Alan Rickman plays Judge Turpin, the villain who doesn’t blink when he sentences a 9 year old boy to hang.   Seems his perspective on the world isn’t much different than Todd’s (they all deserve to die,) but he has the law on his side.  As usual, Rickman seems to be born to play bad guys.   His upperclass english, slightly nasal mumbling is still the creepiest delivery of a threatening line I’ve ever encountered.  Sasha Baron Cohen (of “Borat” fame) makes an appearance as a  barber competitor, and predictably overplays the role.   Still, that’s permissible with this material; one doesn’t expect a great deal of subtlety and nuance in a story of a demon barber who slits throats instead of shaving them, then turns the dead bodies into tasty pies.

[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9GOPWL3oIU]

“Sweeney Todd” never really hits a bump, and thus feels shorter than it is.   Tim Burton has assembled a team that can deliver with consistency, and it’s fun to watch them work together.   I think Stephen Sondheim would be proud of this Hollywood adaptation of his Broadway musical.   And I think you’ll have wicked fun watching it.

Recommended

• to those with a black sense of humor, and no squeamishness about blood.
• to fans of “Delicatessen.”
• to Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, and Alan Rickman fans.

Not Recommended

• if buckets of blood will bother you.
• if you think any Sweeney Todd without Angela Lansbury is no Sweeney Todd at all.