Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I seriously think the best way to describe this movie is by calling it the black sheep love child of Edward Scissorhands and Les Miserables. At this point in time, it became the 6^th collaboration between director Tim Burton and star Johnny Depp, and if I’m being honest, it’s not one of their best.

            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.