Sweeney Todd: O Barbeiro Demoníaco da Rua Fleet

What an extraordinary treat this bloody dirty tale of vengeance and gore is. The exquisite way Tim Burton presents it to us makes it so. Stephen Sondheim's stage masterpiece becomes a film masterpiece of unequaled stature. Everything about it reeks of genius of magic. Once again, Johnny Depp fills, Burton's macabre universe with overwhelming humanity. He can slash as many throats as he wants if we look into Johnny's eyes we see the struggle, the human winning in despair. I know I'm not making too much sense but I just want to urge you, if you love cinema, to rush and see it as God intended, on a big screen and Dolby surround sound.

"Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" is one of the best musical films ever made and probably the last truly excellent Tim Burton effort in directing. It's a romantic and enthralling vision of the dark perspective about life and death for the poor people controled by the privileged, cruel and envious society. It finds a inspired Johnny Depp in probably his best performance of this century. Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall compelte this luxury cast, which is one of the most talented one assembled in a musical!

After fifteen years in the Australian pokey, barber Johnny Depp (as Benjamin Barker) returns to his nineteenth century Fleet Street, London flat and assumes the name "Sweeney Todd". Wrongly imprisoned, Mr. Depp is in a vengeful mood. He learns his wife has poisoned herself, and left teenage daughter Jayne Wisener (as Johanna) in the clutches of lusty Alan Rickman (as Judge Turpin) and Timothy Spall (as Beadle Bamford). Depp's sailing companion, young Jamie Campbell Bower (as Anthony Hope) hears Ms. Wisener singing, and falls in love at first listen. And, she is similarly smitten.

Meanwhile, acting like "Aladdin Sane", Depp showers himself with the blood of throat-slit victims. His new co-dependent companion, dark-eyed Helena Bonham Carter (as Nellie Lovett), sells meat pies made with the human carcasses Depp provides. "And baby makes three" when Depp and Ms. Bonham Carter "adopt" gin-swigging young teenager Edward "Ed" Sanders (as Tobias "Toby" Ragg), after making tasty mince meat out of his swarthy guardian, Sacha Baron Cohen (as Adolfo Pirelli).

Subtitled "The Demon Barber of Fleet Street", director Tim Burton's "Sweeny Todd" is more horror opera than Broadway musical. The promotional material says it "has been hailed as a masterpiece by critics and audiences everywhere." Now, that's going too far, in this case - but, you know Burton and Depp are going to be attached to something visually arresting, and is certainly so. There is, at least, masterpiece-caliber work from the likes of Colleen Atwood, Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo, and Dariusz Wolski, who will hopefully continue to be seen among the outstanding Burton/Depp crews.

******* Sweeney Todd (12/3/07) Tim Burton ~ Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Jamie Campbell Bower, Ed Sanders

Good dark fun.

I knew nothing of this movie except Tim Burton and Johnny Depp had something to do with it, and that, as the executive director put it, there was "lots of blood". I don't think of myself as liking musicals, although I should probably reconsider now.

I had a moment of dread when the movie started and there was a mention of Sacha Baron Cohen being in it. However his performance was in fact quite good. While his acting has a few things in common with his over-the-top Borat character, it somehow fits rather well within the movie.

Some elements of the plot are rather predictable, in a Greek tragedy sort of way, but it doesn't really detract from the movie. We get to enjoy the downward spiral even though we know its shape.

All in all, the movie was awesome, filled with damned and hopeless characters that still made you laugh at every turn.

As it happens more often than not, greatness is relegated to some obscure angle. In a year of brilliant opuses by the Cohen Brothers and PT Anderson, this Tim Burton film shines as the best from every angle. It's not just that Burton creates another superb, dark universe with Dante Ferretti's complicity or that Johnnt Deep breaks new ground, or that Helena Bonham Carter surprises us with a complex, marvelous realistic parody. The film touches visually a very private cord. Ed Wood managed that but Tim Burton with "Sweeny Todd" elevates it to the purest form of art. He will be punished for that, as Ed Wood was in its day. Disappointing grosses in a world that worship grosses will make it appear as a sort of a failure. My advise to you is run to see it wherever you can find it. Try to see it in a big screen with great sound. You will fly and dream and be taken away by the masterful hands of Tim Burton and the glorious faces of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.