Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Review

Sweeny Todd was overall a dissapointment.  I love Johnny Depp.  He's a great actor, especially in darker more off-beat roles.  So I expected that he would make the movie interesting to watch.  Even though I was skeptical of it being a musical, I was willing to overlook that because I thought Depp would save it.    What I didn't expect from the previews was just how musical the movie was going to be.  I thought it would be a regular movie with action and dialogue and such with a few songs interspersed into it.  Nope. There was more singing in the film than spoken dialogue.  It wasn't too terribly far from being an opera.  The singing was fairly well performed, and the songs, though very repetitive after about halfway through the movie, were decently written.  I'm just not into that much of music of that style in a movie.  It had as much singing as a Broadway musical. 

The plot and action were far duller than the I had expected,too.  I thought that it would be full of exciting horror and intrigue.  Not so much. It wasn't exciting and intense.  Just not suspenseful really. Yeah, it had gore, lots of neck slashing.  But even that got dull.  It was just  neck cut and fake blood time after time.  No new and interesting methods of death throughout like better slasher films. It wasn't  like anyone was being afraid of him even. Just people sitting in a barbers chair and getting their necks cut with a razor.   Boring.    There was no point where your heart quickened a little and you kind of tensed up like you do with well done horror.  There weren't even any quick "cheap" scares that make you just startled into jumping a little. There was what was supposed to be a plot twist here and there, but they were all very tired and predictable.  Nothing you couldn't see coming way too far in advance.

The movies wasn't without good points,though.  There was some cool imagery in places.  Like the use of grey tones throughout the film.  It was filmed with an incredibly bleak looking almost grayscale view of the world.  The characters and the settings both were starkly grey.  I liked the use of color and contrast.  It made the characters seem extra grey when they were against things that weren't.  Nifty in that respect. 

There was some dark humor in places,too.  In places, I actually chuckled out loud a little.   There were some sort of philosophical commentaries on society in places that were thought provoking and interesting.  But they were a bit lost amongst the singing and neck chopping.

The costumes, make-up, and styling were well done and cool.  The make-up was a bit cartoon gothic, but with the overall spirit and style of the movie, it worked. 

The acting was good.  There just wasn't much need for good acting in the script.  The movie was a waste of the talents of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter.  Just about any decent Broadway wannabe's could have played the part just as effectively.   

 If you're into musicals with tons of Broadway style music, or are tremendously curious what Johnny Depp's singing voice might be, are absolutely in love with the color grey, and aren't a big fan of action, suspense, or dialogue, this might be the movie for you.  For me, it was a big snore.

Though it wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen by a long shot, it was a waste of my time.  I would have probably been more pleased by having gone and seen anything else that was showing at the multiplex last night than Sweeny Todd.