This film
is considered a horror musical drama—and arguably a bit of comedy—and it never
realizes the full potential of any. The story is about Benjamin Barker, London’s
best barber, who is exiled after Judge Turpin takes a fancy to his wife. Barker
returns 15 years later in the droopiest and most poorly lit London has been in
awhile as the new Sweeney Todd; he wanders into Mrs. Lovett’s gross meat pie
shop to learn that his wife was abused by the judge and committed suicide and
now Judge Turpin is the guardian of Todd’s 15-year-old (the actress is clearly
older) daughter, and the stage is set for revenge. It takes awhile for the
barbering to start happening, and even longer for the demonic slaughtering, but
the blood does eventually start to flow.
You have
the partnership: Todd shaves and slits the throats of customers, and Mrs.
Lovett takes the eco-friendly approach by not allowing any product to go to
waste and turns Todd’s customers into her famous meat pies. You have the
underlying motivation of Lovett wanting to impress Todd, and Todd waiting for
the right opportunity to give Judge Turpin the closest shave of his life. You have
the disgusting villain with his willing and loyal lackey. And you have the
young love just out of reach of each other with the promise of a beautiful
future together communicated through little more than looks and glances. So
where does it go wrong?
This movie
adapted from Stephen Sondheim’s (West
Side Story, Into the Woods, among
others) musical starts off with a title sequence that has an absolutely incredible
orchestrated score. Unfortunately, after that is when little things start to
unravel the big picture. None of the stars, okay Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha
Baron Cohen are scene-stealing, really stand out with an obviously amazing or
atrocious voice. The songs themselves have moments of interesting lyrics and
pacing, but again, nothing all that memorable. And the movie itself becomes
stuck in a weird limbo of not knowing how serious or light-hearted to be, and
the end result feels muddled for it.
Johnny Depp
is dark and brooding and mysterious and murderous, but there isn’t much to find
performance-wise beneath the surface—and some of this complaint must be aimed at
director Tim Burton as well. Alan Rickman’s Judge Turpin never is given enough
to warrant a feeling of dread whenever appearing on-screen like Russell Crowe’s
presence did in Les Miserables. The
young guns of Johanna and Anthony have little more than a throwaway romance,
but there are still bright spots. Bonham Carter had the most compelling
character, and Cohen’s Pirelli was the perfect contrast. Props to the kid who
played Toby as well, and the wonderful Timothy Spall rounded out all the Harry Potter characters appearing
together for this movie (Wormtail, Snape, and Bellatrix).
There isn’t
enough meat (pies) in the story, so I found myself multiple times wondering how
close I was to the end of the film during one of the many bland musical
numbers. And this review would be much more scathing if not for a quality plot
twist right near the end. But maybe you’re not seeing this movie for the story
or songs. Maybe you want to see the bloody wonders Tim Burton created behind
the whole concept of demonic barber. There’s certainly tons of blood flow—granted
not all that realistic—but it didn’t really do it for me. As noted earlier it
takes awhile to reach the blood, and I just don’t think it or
watching other Londoners follow up by chowing down on the pies is worth the wait.
Here’s why
this movie never really works for me: I think it was the wrong move to go
literally dark instead of more whimsical. The latter half of the film more so
just grossed me out instead of entrancing me like I think it had the potential
to do if everything was less tongue-in-pie and more tongue-in-cheek. There are
some funny moments, and they could have been amped up instead of being
overshadowed by the goal to go dark and damp and much too focused on the revenge.
The movie did rightfully win an Oscar for makeup, and I think it would’ve been
deserving for the win for the awesome costumes, but this is one barber I won’t
be leaving a positive review for on Yelp.
All in all if you want Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, there are better
choices like Edward Scissorhands.
In Brief:
·
It’s hard to make this claim now since it’s
already tallying up its first weekend box office results, but I have been
calling for weeks that Alita: Battle
Angel will be one of the biggest blockbuster busts of 2019. It may not
reach that level based on its decent first weekend haul, but this supposedly cinematic
experience from the producer of Avatar and
positive reviews from what only seems to be Twitter users isn’t a good sign. It’s
trying to oversell itself, and I just don’t think it looks all that
interesting.
·
With the Oscars 1 week away, might as well get
into my thoughts on everything and predictions. Disclaimer: I honestly haven’t
seen many of the films mostly because 2018 was not the best year for films and
the nominees didn’t look very interesting or worth my money.
·
Best Picture: I wanted to see BlacKkKlansman, and I’d put my money on
either that or Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma.
Honestly, Black Panther didn’t deserve
a nod. It was an entertaining film, but I really don’t think it was even the
best Marvel movie of the year—maybe going more in-depth on that will happen
another time. My Best Picture? Based solely off what I watched and my internal
ranking system, my Runner-up is Spider-Man:
Into the Spider-Verse, with special acknowledgements to Mission Impossible: Fallout, Hereditary, and A Quiet Place, and my favorite movie of the year being Annihilation. The more I go back to it,
the more I enjoy that film.
·
I’m hoping Christian Bale takes home Best Actor,
but Rami Malek is looking to be a strong contender.
·
I really have no idea for Best Actress, so let’s
just give it to Glenn Close.
·
I’d feel pretty confident in Mahershala Ali
winning Supporting Actor.
·
If the 2 ladies from The Favourite split their votes for Supporting Actress, the win
goes to Regina King.
·
I had Best Animated Film as Brad Bird and Incredibles 2 all the way up until Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse came
around and blew everything out of the water as one of the best Spider-Man and
animated movies to come out in a long time.
·
I think there could have been better nominees
for Cinematography, so let’s pick an underdog in Cold War.
·
I do think Black
Panther absolutely deserves a nomination for Costume Design, but maybe the
voters felt some magic for Mary Poppins
Returns.
·
I have Alfonso Cuaron edging out Yorgos
Lanthimos for Director.
·
Based on the one I’d be most interested in
watching, I’m giving Documentary to Free
Solo.
·
For Live Action Short Film and Documentary: Pick
‘em. Please. I have no idea.
·
I’m going to say Bohemian Rhapsody beats out Green
Book for editing.
·
Don’t see how you could pick any other Foreign
Language film over Roma.
·
Since Darkest
Hour won last year, Vice will
follow this year and win Makeup.
·
Mary
Poppins Returns could easily win Best Score, but I would not be
disappointed if Alexandre Desplat won for Isle
of Dogs.
·
“Shallow” for Song.
·
Black
Panther or First Man for
Production Design.
·
Really enjoyed the adorable Bao, so that’s my shoe-in for Short Animated Film.
·
I loved the Sound Editing of A Quiet Place, but it feels like the
absence of sound for much of that film means it can’t win. Give it to Bohemian Rhapsody.
·
Pick ‘em for Sound Mixing.
·
Extremely disappointed Annihilation didn’t get a nomination for Visual Effects. I had
issues with the CGI in moments for both Solo
and Avengers: Infinity War, so my
vote is for Ready Player One.
·
Adapted Screenplay is probably If Beale Street Could Talk, but this is
close between a couple others.
·
And Original Screenplay must be Green Book.
·
As a closing note, I agreed with Ellen when she
told and gave her reasoning for why Kevin Hart should’ve stayed on as host, but
I’m not going to get into that. Overall, most likely won’t watch live because
there’s really no point.
·
The good news is that after a few super duds of
releases of films, there’s stuff now or coming out that I might check out, and
there are others on the horizon to look forward to. As for right now, you can
probably catch me going animated with both The
Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, and How
to Train your Dragon: The Secret World will honestly probably be worth
checking out in theaters after a great first film and an even better sequel.
