Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Widescreen) (2007)

"Something close to a masterpiece, a work of extreme -- I am tempted to say evil -- genius.  A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"Mesmerizing and highly entertaining.  Claudia Puig, USA Today
"Depp is such a soulful presence he gives you a glimpse of this maniac's pain and pathos. Bonham Carter is extraordinary.  David Ansen, Newsweek
"An elegant horror film...that takes pleasure in its own theatricality, gives pleasure with caustic wit...  Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
"Burton brings his signature visual style...but he wisely follows Sondheim's lead, letting the music and spirit of the original piece show the way.  Keith Phipps, The Onion A.V. Club
"With his sturdy acting and surprisingly good voice, Depp is a Sweeney Todd for the ages.  Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter
"...a bloody wonder, intimate and epic, horrific and heart-rending as it flies on the wings of Sondheim's most thunderously exciting score.  Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Editor's Note With its rivers of blood, this adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical isn't for the faint of heart--or stomach. But thanks to the black humor, impeccable production design, and gorgeous music, Tim Burton fans will want to sing after seeing SWEENEY TODD. For his sixth collaboration with the director, Johnny Depp stars as Benjamin Barker aka Sweeney Todd, a barber falsely imprisoned by Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). After leaving prison, he comes back to Victorian London to find his wife poisoned and his daughter held captive. As he plots his revenge, Sweeney joins forces with Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), and while he preys on clients asking for a shave, his new partner turns the bodies into baked goods. But the judge still lives, and the razor-wielding madman wants his vengeance. Though it's a musical, SWEENEY TODD has more in common with Italian horror films such as SUSPIRIA than it does with CHICAGO. Even the horror-musical hybrid LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS pales in comparison to the darkness found here. Previous Burton-Depp pairings have veered toward the macabre, but this reaches a glorious new level. Though they've made excellent films apart, their partnership has produced some of their best work, including EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, ED WOOD, and now SWEENEY TODD. Depp demonstrates his rock-band roots as the antihero of the title with another amazing performance, while Bonham Carter is both hilarious and heartbreaking as the eager Mrs. Lovett. But credit also belongs to production designer Dante Ferretti, director of photography Dariusz Wolski, and, of course, Burton, for showing a sooty London that is just as dark as the film's subject matter. Source composer Sondheim should also be recognized for the haunting songs that threaten to stick in viewers' heads, but the film as a whole also deserves to be remembered for its beauty and brutality.

	Alan Rickman
	Helena Bonham Carter
	Jamie Campbell Bower
	Jayne Wisener
	Johnny Depp
	Laura Michelle Kelly
	Sacha Baron Cohen
	Timothy Spall
	Chris Lebenzon - Editor
	Dante Ferretti - Production Designer
	Dariusz Wolski - Cinematographer
	Hugh Wheeler - Based On Musical By
	John Logan - Screenplay
	Patrick McCormick - Executive Producer
	Richard D. Zanuck - Producer
	Stephen Sondheim - Based On Musical By
	Tim Burton - Director

New York Times
"Mr. Burton's film adaptation of Mr. Sondheim's musical, is as dark and terrifying as any motion picture in recent memory....Expressing a breathtakingly, rigorously pessimistic view of human nature. It is also something close to a masterpiece..." 12/21/2007

Entertainment Weekly
"[T]his opulent, attentive production is splashed with signature style and hell-bent on entertaining..." -- Grade: B 12/21/2007 p.54-55

Total Film
3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he story takes in romance, suspense, melodrama, vengeance and madness along the way....Depp and Bonham Carter present their beating hearts on gore-streaked sleeves." 02/01/2008 p.50

Los Angeles Times
"Tim Burton's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece SWEENEY TODD is a funny, moody musical blood bath....It's a gorgeous artifact..." 12/21/2007

Rolling Stone
Ranked #5 in Rolling Stone's "10 Best Movies Of 2007" -- "[A] striking achievement in every way, particularly for the tour de force of Johnny Depp..." 12/27/2007 p.120

Rolling Stone
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "Depp is simply stupendous....Depp erases the line between singing and acting, fusing them into something that keeps the movie blazing." 12/27/2007 p.124-125

Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "The stars make surprisingly fair fists of the singing, and their acting muscles put over Sondheim's intricate, clever lyrics." 02/01/2008 p.38

Uncut
4 stars out of 5 -- [I]t's the giddy, relentless nihilism of the film that will thrill even the most showtune-phobic." 03/01/2008 p.119

Sight and Sound
"Burton has created a supremely cinematic work, in everything from the swooping, scuttling shots through London's sooty, satanic back alleys, to the wild-eyed vengeful intensity of its anti-hero..." 03/01/2008 p.82

ReelViews 7 of 10
True to its stage nature, Sweeney Todd is characterized by a love of the macabre and a cutting wit. Under Burton's direction, however, it's strangely stagnant. The movie's lack of energy radiates outward from the low-key songs to the subdued performance by Johnny Depp to the desaturated color employed by cinematographer Dariusz Wolski...Stylistically, this is all Burton. In fact, one could argue that it's Corpse Bride come to life. This is Jack the Ripper's London - a place of shadows, horror, and the grand guignol. Sweeney looks like Captain Jack crossed with Elsa Lancaster's Bride of Frankenstein, and Depp plays the role pretty much the way he has played every part in his career for Burton...I suspect that fans of Sondheim's play will be pleased with Burton's screen interpretation of it. He has remained faithful to the essence of the text, making trims when necessary but keeping the overall skeleton intact...While there's plenty in Sweeney Todd to please the eye, there's less here to generate any real sense of enthusiasm. The film's bloodiness is suitably over-the-top but, as with everything else, Burton downplays it to avoid the appearance of campiness. In the end, the real problem with the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is that he's not as bloody fun as he should be. - James Berardinelli

Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
Tim Burton's film adaptation of "Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" smacks its lips at the prospect of such a meal, and so it should. In telling this story, half-measures will avail him nothing. The bloodiest musical in stage history, it now becomes the bloodiest in film history, and it isn't a jolly romp, either, but a dark revenge tragedy with heartbreak, mayhem and bloody good meat pies...But we know that going in and are relieved that Burton has played true to the material...To an unusual degree, "Sweeney Todd" works on a quasi-realistic level and not as a musical fantasy. That's not to say we're to take it as fact, but that we can at least accept it on its own terms without the movie winking at us. It combines some of Tim Burton's favorite elements: The fantastic, the ghoulish, the bizarre, the unspeakable, the romantic and in Johnny Depp, he has an actor he has worked with since "Edward Scissorhands" and finds a perfect instrument...Helena Bonham Carter may be Burton's inamorata, but apart from that, she is perfectly cast, not as a vulgar fishwife type but as a petite beauty with dark, sad eyes and a pouting mouth and a persistent fantasy that she and the barber will someday settle by the seaside. Not bloody likely. - Roger Ebert