World Famous Comics: Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Starring: Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Alan Rickman, Edward Sanders, Timothy Spall Directed By: Tim Burton Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Dreamworks Video Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: April 01, 2008 Running Time: 116 minutes Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Description: Johnny Depp and Tim Burton join forces again in a big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's award-winning musical thriller "Sweeney Todd." Depp stars in the title role as a man unjustly sent to prison who vows revenge, not only for that cruel punishment, but for the devastating consequences of what happened to his wife and daughter. When he returns to reopen his barber shop, Sweeney Todd becomes the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who "shaved the heads of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard from again." Joining Depp is Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney's amorous accomplice, who creates diabolical meat pies. The cast also includes Alan Rickman, who portrays the evil Judge Turpin, who sends Sweeney to prison and Timothy Spall as the Judge's wicked associate Beadle Bamford and Sacha Baron Cohen is a rival barber, the flamboyant Signor Adolfo Pirelli.
Amazon.com: After years of rumors, it turns out that Tim Burton was the perfect visionary to film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Stephen Sondheim's Broadway masterpiece, and the result is a macabre and moving musical movie as enthralling as anything Burton has ever done. The show's mix of gothic horror, Grand Guignol, very dark humor, and witty and beautiful music never was the stuff of traditional musical comedy, but it's a powerful work, and perhaps the richest of the late 20th century. In the movie, Burton's frequent collaborator, Johnny Depp, plays Todd, a wronged man whose lust for revenge drives him to murder (an 19th-century legend who has been traced to a real-life barber). Helena Bonham Carter, another Burton mainstay, is Mrs. Lovett, the barber's partner-in-unspeakable-crime. It's no surprise that Depp is an excellent choice to convey Todd's brooding intensity and volcanic rage, but he can also sing a score that is so challenging it has often played in opera houses (though not with the same style as the Broadway original, Len Cariou, and he occasionally lapses into pop style). Bonham Carter is small of voice and lacks the humor of the original Broadway Lovett, Angela Lansbury, but she sings on pitch, in rhythm, and in character at the same time, which is no small feat for a Sondheim show. Aficionados will regret the loss of certain musical passages--"The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" is just an instrumental overture and the chorus is gone altogether, among others--but the reassuring presence of orchestrator Jonathan Tunick and conductor Paul Gemignani ensures that the music feels right and sounds great. And the film's depiction of a Victorian London hellhole--with cinematography by Dariusz Wolski and costumes by Colleen Atwood--also looks and feels right.
The excellent cast is filled out by Alan Rickman as the villainous Judge Turpin, Timothy Spall as his seedy Beadle, Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat) as a rival barber, Jamie Campbell Bower as the young lover Anthony, Jayne Wisener as his object of affection, and Ed Sanders as the young Toby. For fans of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp who don't think they like musicals, Sweeney Todd should be a revelation (though not for the squeamish, as the gore is intense and completely appropriate). For fans of Broadway and Sondheim, it's hard to imagine getting a better adaptation than this. The fact that there's no newly composed Oscar-bait song sung by a Josh Groban-type over the end credits only makes it better. --David Horiuchi
A gore and defiant new aproach to a musical Sweeney Todd is back, and this time on the big screen.
This is definately not a movie for the faint-hearted. If you are expecting a classic musical with happy songs and joyful feelings, this is not the movie for you. In this adaptation of the musical Sweeny Todd loses all the subtly(¿?) the play has on stage.
This is a very good and smart production that uses the weaknesses of the actors into achieving something good, (like the uneducated voice of Mr. Depp making the character more believable).
The whole thing feels so surreal and cruel it gives you the feeling of the character's madness and pain after the first minutes.
I think some scenes were morbidly added to cause some of the audience to look away off the screen, and were unnecesary, but if you enjoy gore, you'll enjoy some of the cracking sounds.
The talent selection was good, but makes me wonder if some of the actors were put there just because recent success on their careers, or they'd really fit the character, specially the young ones which were very dull and unappealing, you just can't wait for their scenes to be over.
A good job by the Dark Duo (Burton&Depp)
Fast, faster and fastest (is that a word?) This movie and the music therein is soooooo good. I highly recommend this seller, too. They were super cool and groovy!
Not for the Squeamish Not to everyone's taste - especially if you are squeamish - is this Grand Guignol song-story of revenge, murder and the worst meat-pies in London, splashed with blood the color of Chanel lipstick and dark humor. In fact the humor is pitch black, only slightly darker than grim and grimy London in some slightly pre-Victorian age. What Tim Burton has made of it may not be quite what this revengers' tragedy was on stage and at full length. But it is original and lives up to what we have come to expect of any collaboration between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp... even if (as has been noted in other reviews) a large portion of Stephen Sondheim's literate and witty lyrical numbers were sacrificed to the demands of a movie with a running time of about half the length of the full stage production.
The plot is whisper-thin, an urban legend or a melancholy ballad about a young man who once had a happy home, with a beautiful wife and a baby daughter. But a wicked and corrupt judge sentences him on false charges to transportation to Australia, and when he returns fifteen years later, it appears that his wife is dead, and his daughter is the ward of the judge. Set on revenge, he sets up shop as a barber in his old home, upstairs from the cheerfully larcenous Mrs. Lovett. There is a small sub-plot, regarding his daughter Joanna, kept captive by the wicked judge - and a young sailor and shipboard comrade of Sweeney Todd's - but mostly it is about Sweeney Todd's implacable quest for vengeance. The bodies pile up through-out, dumped through a trapdoor into the cellar and efficiently transformed into meat pies by Mrs. Lovett... and there you have the most of it; almost too Edward Gorey-comical to be a horror movie, but almost too gory to fit into the musical comedy bracket. I would not allow pre-teens to watch this, by the way; it's fairly guaranteed to be productive of screaming nightmares for those children sensitive to video violence.
Of the extras included on this disc, the most interesting of them was an examination of the origins of the `Sweeney Todd - Demon Barber of Fleet Street'; it appears that he was an urban legend, a creation of a writer for the most sensational 19th century broadsheets, somewhat akin to the stories of the hook-handed man who was supposed to haunt lovers lanes in the US.
Well worth it!! I was hesitant to purchase this movie online, at first . But I am so glad I did! Not only was the DVD in perfect condition when I got it but it came in 2 business days. The movie itself was beyond amazing! I was so impressed with both Johnny and Helena's singing. The rest of the cast was as talented and wonderful as they could be. A must buy!
Okay, so it isn't Broadway! I saw Sweeney Todd in March of 1979 in preview on Broadway. I sat in the second row-so I got to see all the gore up close. I was mesmorized and couldn't get it out of my head for months. The only problem was that Angela Lansbury clearing wasn't up to the part in terms of the singing requirements of the role-but I loved her anyway. Victor Garber played Anthony in a stiff manner, and the girl who played Joanna was such a dear thing you wanted to choke her. I kept waiting for her to "get it" from "Dad". I still LOVED the show. Now the movie: okay, HB Carter CANNOT sing, although she has a goth creepiness to her that Angela didn't. The latter was way more cockney and much funnier in the part--loony funny. I give this only 4 stars because of Bonham-Carter. Johnny was a much better S.T. than Len Cariou, who looked like an a-hole with that wig on-(he also had problems vocally) but Johnny is the perfect Sweeney. Not that his voice is all that great either but he simply has the sex appeal that the other schlub lacked and thus provided a rationale why Mrs. Lovett was so crazy about him. He also looks terrific with his makeup and that white streak in the hair. A few problems: the "God That's Good" number-which opened the second act was much better on the stage-and was more interesting in that this was the moment when the barber chair arrived and was tested. And unfortunately the ending of the movie is weak--where the hell is "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" which opened and closed the play? This ending is too abrupt and drab (the film would have grossed 10 million more with the stage ending)-did Tim Burton think it was too "theatrical"--but what's more theatrical that this show?
Additionally I loved the voice of the kid who played Toby--he was better than Ken Jennings' stage Toby and much younger and more workhouse convincing. The stage Toby was portrayed as retarded and was a lot older. I loved the astonishing production design of the film and the marvellous costumes and of course let's not forget Borat himself as Pirelli-just marvelous in this small part.
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