Neal Vitale Reviews: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street

3 stars out of 5

Stephen Sondheim's late 70s musical "Sweeney Todd" has made it to the big screen at last, courtesy of director Tim Burton (Batman, Ed Wood, Big Fish). It is a ghoulishly beautiful work, telling a Shakespearean story of savage revenge and regret in shades of steely blue-gray and sooty black, splattered with vivid, viscous, neon-red blood. While leads Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter do more than competent jobs acting and singing as Benjamin Barker (aka Sweeney Todd) and Mrs. Lovett, they are clearly secondary to the set design, staging, and, frankly, the blood. Unfortunately, when a film's core is inanimate, the result is more to be admired than embraced. Other than as an outlet for Burton's florid imagination and style, there seems to be little reason that Sweeney Todd became a film.