Movie Review: Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Tim Burton has always remain to be one of my favorite directors. When you go to a Tim Burton movie, you know it's gonna be one of those well-produced dark fantasy that deals with death or ghosts. If you like his stuff, you'll like Sweeney Todd.

Sweeney Todd is an adaptation of a musical written by the great Stephen Sondheim. It is originally from a 19th century urban legend about a barber who was wrongly imprisoned because a judge wanted to take his beautiful wife and keep her for himself. Sweeney escaped from prison 15 years later and come back to Fleet Street and take his revenge. Along the way, he met a thrifty Mrs. Lovett who makes meat pie downstairs. She offered her help and take care of the bodies by baking them into pies and selling them to customers. (In Hong Kong, we also have a similar urban legend that involves someone finding a finger in BBQ pork buns)

I'm actually pleased about the recent trend of musical adaptation to big screen movies ever since Chicago, but I'm also cautious. The singing or Renee Zellweger and Richard Gere had left a bad taste in my mouth(/bad note in my ears) and I have never heard Johnny Depp sing, but I knew that I want to see this movie. And it was good. It's not awkward because Johnny Depp is not trying too hard to be a singer like Renee. Maybe his role didn't call for a big performance number as in Chicago, it is more of a storytelling than a performance. The storyline, the staging, the mood is everything that I hoped for, plus I haven't seen the Broadway version so I was a bit surprised by the ending. Sure there's blood and gore, but we are in a slasher movie and they were all handled in a rather humorous way. I liked the movie. "A-"