Goldblatt University

Brilliant. This is another one of those times when I am the only person I know who loved this movie. (See Across the Universe for a more drastic example). I expected the very worst from this movie. Something in my head just kept telling me that Tim Burton doing a musical was a terrible idea, and that Sweeney Todd was going the way of Hairspray, Phantom of the Opera, and all the other movie-musicals Hollywood has been churning out lately. But to my delight this is a brilliant, captivating little gem of a movie. Burton has managed to blend his own signature aesthetic with the world of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd seamlessly.

The film looks like sleepy hollow or the nightmare before christmas–it is a Tim Burton Film. And yet this is the sweeney we all know and love without any stupid twists. Best of all, Burton takes a theatre piece and makes it convincingly cinematic. No crap choreography that looks dumb on screen–instead the thing feels and looks and sounds like a movie, and a haunting, gory, violent one at that. the violence is made more intimate and more real. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter both croon through their songs respectably with a cinematic singing style. The kids playing the sailor and Joanna are clearly professional singers and they nail their songs, same for the tiny tot playing toby.

Why did they cut The Ballad of Sweeney Todd?????