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Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street |
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Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
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by Dreamworks Video
Sales Rank: 549
Price: $16.99
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Johnny Depp and Tim Burton join forces again in a big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's award-winning musical thriller "Sweeney Todd." Depp stars in the title role as a man unjustly sent to prison who vows revenge, not only for that cruel punishment, but for the devastating consequences of what happened to his wife and daughter. When he returns to reopen his barber shop, Sweeney Todd becomes the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who "shaved the heads of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard from again." Joining Depp is Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney's amorous accomplice, who creates diabolical meat pies. The cast also includes Alan Rickman, who portrays the evil Judge Turpin, who sends Sweeney to prison and Timothy Spall as the Judge's wicked associate Beadle Bamford and Sacha Baron Cohen is a rival barber, the flamboyant Signor Adolfo Pirelli.
Viewer Reviews
To my amazement, when the film was over, people in the movie theater stood up and said "I liked it." Meanwhile, I'm thinking, "Of course you liked it, it's one of the finest musicals ever written" But I believe that the love people give this film is only due to Sondheim's genius source material which Burton did not add anything to. Burton could only throw his wannabe Edward Gorey style at it, play up the blood, and tell the actors to perform the whole thing without subtext. This musical is inherently FUNNY. Hello? Where was the humor? This was Depp's least funny role in a musical that SHOULD be darkly HILARIOUS? Explain that!!! And for those people who think a tragedy can't be funny look at Hamlet - that show has tons of humor and is arguably the finest work in western drama. Laughter adds dimension and makes the sad parts sadder. An overabundance of blood does not make up for cutting out the brilliant irony and swelling emotional power of the musical. If it was blood he wanted, Burton should have directed a re-make of Evil Dead. Though he no doubt would have ruined that one too.
Also more evidence of Burton's lack of respect for the musical is the fact that he cast ACTORS WHO CAN'T SING THEIR PARTS. Helena Bonham-Carter was the worst offender and literally butchered one of the greatest female characters of all time. Anything I felt for the characters was provoked by Sondheim's score. The director and the actors brought nothing. SHAME SHAME SHAME ON YOU TIM!
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Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
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