moonspinner55 Reflections in a razor. After being falsely imprisoned for 15 years, Benjamin Barker, London's most efficient barber, returns to his Fleet St. haunts under an alias to exact revenge on the villainous judge who allegedly drove Barker's wife to suicide and now has designs on their grown daughter. Long-overdue film-adaptation of the 1979 Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, itself derived from George Dibdin-Pitt's play, first filmed in 1928 and again with Tod Slaughter starring in 1936. This time, the material is served up as macabre, black comedy, with director Tim Burton giving the picture an icy-gray pallor--and not just on the actors' faces, but an overall chilly deadness which seems ingrained in the film itself. Glowering, mumbling Johnny Depp attempts a perpetual low-key in the lead--in fact, most of the performances are muted in general--but this works against the film's aim (one presumes) to be a darkly comic grotesquerie. Black-red blood is splashed and dashed about the screen quite stylishly, but the heart of the piece is never found. The hand-picked cast perform their songs more than adequately, yet they are unable to bring these characters to life. Production design and technical aspects first-rate, but exactly what audience was Burton hoping to capture? *1/2 from ****

Hannah Ewen (sourpatchbab) Sweeney Todd may seem dull or depressing to begin with, but after the protagonist hatches his revenge plot, partnering with a bar maid in order to become a pair of cannibalistic, unflinching murderers; it's far easier to remain interested. The murders are surprisingly casual, and even comedic at times. It is an intensely dark film in both setting and subject, but it has contrasting fanciful, happy themes; mostly regarding family values, and brilliantly and hilariously upbeat musical numbers.However, all of the characters are quite shallow, in that each of them has a single focus within their life, which the film follows as they progressively become more willing to do anything to achieve it. Not much about the film is realistic, but it's entertaining in its extremity, and contrast with rare moments of light-heartedness.Sweeney Todd may have one of the least happy endings there ever was in a film, and there is very little closure even when Todd's revenge is exacted. But despite its flaws, Johnny Depp & Helena Bonham-Carter as an acting duo directed by Tim Burton, could never be a regrettable watch; especially when the product is a musical about a murder spree.(1.14.36, Sweeney slits throat of second victim during song) That actually took me by surprise, lol.(1.42.45 Sweeney kills old witch) Soo, is that his wife, or? (1.47.28) I knew it, lol.(1.51.52, Credits) Okay so what happens to the daughter? 0 closure, lol.

valadas Such excellent players like Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are ill-spent in this not better than fair movie. The best of it is the Victorian London atmosphere in interiors, exteriors and clothes, aristocratic and popular. The story in itself is somewhat abstruse. A corrupt judge is aroused by the beautiful wife of a barber and to be able to take hold of her has her husband imprisoned on a false accusation and sent to deportation. He comes back fifteen years later with a false identity and wants to take his revenge on the judge. The next episodes are grandguignolesque and somewhat incomprehensible filled with several murders of the barber's clients in the barber's shop he had installed in the first floor of a confectionery owned by a woman with whom he starts a love relationship. He cuts their throats while pretending to shave them. The victims' bodies are used by that woman to bake meat pies. Among other things, what is strange is that no friends or relatives ever turned up to query about those disappearances. The barber ends up by getting hold of the judge after attracting him to the barber shop on a false promise and he cuts his throat there. And from horrifying scene to horrifying scene everything turns out badly to the barber, his companion and even his wife that appears in the end and who he thought was dead a long time ago. He cuts her throat too since he didn't recognize her and thought she was the beggar in whom she had changed herself. Awful indeed.

Kirpianuscus Tim Burton. and Johnny Depp. and Helen Bonham Carter. a Gothic play from Broadway. and one of films who mix sarcasm, crime and crumbs from Count of Monte Cristo. result - a delightful discover of dark London, hilarious characters, songs and interesting performance of young Ed Sanders. a film like a strange dance. because, and Tim Burton does not exception in this case, the film has its rhythm and flavor and lights and shadows. Sweeny Todd by Depp not exactly a character from Brodway but a kind of Don Quijote . precise, full of desire of revenge, looking recuperate his past in large web of secrets. Helen Bonham Carter - perfect choice for a role who propose a sort of cynical pragmatism. short - a bitter delight.