Tim Burton successfully portrays Sweeney Todd to be about as scary as an angry bouncy castle.
If I had to tell you in a hurry the two things that I find the most pointless in life, in a rush I would probably say slasher films and musicals. So in a rather bizarre twist of fate I found myself sitting in a cinema watching two of the most pointless things fused together in motion picture format; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Let me first start by saying that if you didn’t know this was a musical (like one person in the cinema didn’t last night: evidenced by his spouting of ‘is this a musical?!’ in a shocked tone), it’s a musical. Let me also start by saying that nobody can possibly be a demon if he possesses an inclination to randomly burst into song at even the slightest provocation.
Not unsurprisingly in a musical, most of the characters spend the majority of the film semi-singing – partly talking, then raising their sentence at the end like a very tuneful Australian. But it’s this precise fact that lets the film down the most and lightens the tone far too much. All this pointless singing and telling people they’re about to die in a sweet-sounding verse gets very boring very quickly.
It makes the film seem almost desperate. Like an old one-hit-wonder pop star singing the chorus of their famous song to anyone who will listen, the characters in Sweeney Todd need only to be looked at to break into a desperate tune, fart-arsing about the screen with all the skilful warbling of a first-round X-Factor drop out.
If any of them could actually sing (there’s one person who’s actually good at it and they don’t even let Alan Rickman attempt it) Sweeney Todd might have made a bit of sense. But instead what you get for your 6 million pound entry fee is a two hour long affirmation that Hollywood actors really can’t string a tune together even if they’re in a film that’s meant to be a musical. Johnny Depp spends most of the film disguising this fact by pointlessly growling at the end of every sentence to make him seem ‘hard’.
But then all that is contradicted by the cracking story underneath all the stupid lullabies that never really gets a chance to make any sense. Because every likes singing so bloody much, it takes half an hour for anyone to have a conversation consisting of little more than a greeting, a few sentences in the middle, and a goodbye.
What Tim Burton has done here isn’t make a good musical. Nor has he made a good film. What he’s actually achieved – and rather successfully I’d like to add – is make the Sweeney Todd story seem like Carry On Slashing ; a completely stupid, pointless, tongue-so-firmly-in-cheek-it’s-making-a-hole thinly plotted film.
Congratulations Timmy, you’ve shitted on the story.
// A pathetically tuneful 2 out of 10.
Jan 26, 03:28 PM
Rob
The Burton/Depp combination always throw us up a interesting almost marmite like film. You love it or hate it.
Our illustrious host has shown he obviously prefers jam or marmalade on his morning toast, but forgot to mention one thing that came out of this film with credibility intact.
Helena Bonham Carter, as a oddly stunning Mrs. Lovett.
