In order to keep up with our holiday tradition of seeing movie musicals on Christmas, my family saw Sweeney Todd starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. It was as heartwarming, bright, and cheery as any holiday movie we could have seen. Mmhmm...
All in all I thought the movie was pretty decent. I love Tim Burton's style of filmmaking, how animated his live action work is pulled off. Although this film was a bit griddier than say, his Sleepy Hollow type stuff, it was still a successful film. It was also a successful musical film. So many times musical films fail to set up the feel of a musical, causing the audience to be confused when people suddenly start singing (eg Rent & Dreamgirls (halfway through)). But Sweeney succeeded in this respect, as did Depp and Carter as Sweeney and Lovett. Their voices were not as strong as I felt they should have been (Carter's especially sounded whispy and weak, and Depp brought in a rock-y tone to his Sweeney). Of course I was skeptical about their abilities to sing the score, but I suppose they pulled it off nicely. That is to say, the score of the show seemed flattened out either to fit their voices or to fit the screen, which I think is the former more than the latter? Perhaps Burton and Sondheim felt that they didn't need to rely on the heavy and bold music of the stage show to effectively tell the story, but rather the dialogue and visuals? I don't know. But that was one thing I disliked about the film.
The kids who played Anthony and Tobias were great, as was Sascha Baron Cohen. But my favorites of the film were Alan Rickman and Timothy Spall as Judge Turpin and the Beadle. They were so slimy and sleezy and sinister, I couldn't get enough of it! My favorite part of the film, however, was the montage with Sweeney killing his customers and sending them to the basement below. Very classy. Well, as classy as spraying and gurgling blood and crumpling bodies can be.
My parents favorite of the film? The Mamma Mia trailer before it even started.
