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

- written May 2008

Summary: Benjamin Barker returns to 19th Century London after having being framed and sent to prison in Australia by the cruel Judge Turpin who desired Barker’s wife Lucy. Barker, now calls himself Sweeney Todd and returns to the place where he used to run a barber shop and finds the shop has now been taken over by Mrs Lovett who runs a meat pie shop in London. His goal is to take revenge upon Judge Turpin but meanwhile finds himself enjoying the killing of innocents…that is until its time to pay the piper!           Overall: There are many people who loved this film but I won’t be one of them. I think the story probably works beautifully on a stage such as Broadway, but as a film, I wasn’t buying it. It’s all about Barker and revenge and then explains little to nothing why he decide to kill everyone else too. No motive there, just a reason to introduce cute songs. It’s also such an odd pacing for a film. So fast and swift with tons of singing, then other times it slows to a crawl and no tunes for a half an hour. It’s a wonder either business survived with the barber shop being nothing more than an empty chair in the middle of the room and Lovett’s shop being a dirty, skanky thing. I truly think the late 90’s version with Ben Kingsley was superior. Sure we have a very nice cast and at times, some decent filmmaking but the songs were weird and odd and the gore was so over-the-top and fake it ruined parts too. Overall…skip it.           Comparison: Sleepy Hollow meets Cats

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