Sweeney Todd

One would assume that Tim Burton would be the perfect choice to bring Steven Sondheim's horror-musical "Sweeney Todd" to the big screen, but, though stylish, the end result is not particularly imaginative. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are made up to look ghoulish and overcast Victorian London looks right out of "Heart of Darkness," but, considering that the play is about a vengeful barber who slays his customers so that the pie-shop proprietress below can have meat for her pastries, this all seems like playing it straight. The movie is not very evenly-plotted either; it moves at a surprisingly lax pace until the third act, which is so fast that it seems truncated.

There are, however, enough good qualities to keep the movie perky and enjoyable. Alan Rickman relishes being an upper-crust villain, even if the important dynamic between his character and Todd is underdeveloped; Carter plays her Cockney as wonderfully dubious--like her pies, she's sweet and tasty, but full of bad things, our moral compass gone haywire; and Sacha Baron Cohen gives the movie a hammy lift, although, like Rickman, he's not around for long enough. Depp is okay--he channels Todd's gloom in the talking parts, but there's not much else he can get out of the single-minded barber. He gives singing the old college try, but seems to be nervously looking about for direction while doing so. And, as a grubby sailor that Todd's daughter inexplicably falls for, Jamie Campbell Bower is plopped down and he thuds into his scenes as though edited in from another movie. But, even if "Sweeney Todd" is not an expert film, it's an agreeable potboiler--and, because Burton transcends the film with an elegant final image, I left the film with some degree of satisfaction.