Tim Burton's latest is a film adaption of Stephen Sondheim's hit stage musical. After being framed for a crime a barber going under the name 'Sweeney Todd' returns to London finding out his wife was raped and has committed suicide and his daughter now living with the Judge who was responsible for sending him to prison. Opening up shop in his old home he seeks revenge with the help of Mrs Lovett, the woman who owns the unsuccessful pie shop downstairs. When they accidentally kill one too many, they find that the now acquired meat turns the pie business around.
I am a huge Burton fan but honestly wasn't looking too forward to this film when I first heard about it. The idea of a macabre musical just seemed too atypical of a Tim Burton film and the other proposed idea at the time of biopic Ripley's Believe it or Not sounded much more my kind of film and could of been another Ed Wood. With the writers returning from said film and Jim Carrey to star, that project has now moved to other hands. In fact the last few Burton films have not been as good as they should of been. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was nicely shot, had a lot of great moments and a fantastic supporting cast the alterations to the original storyline to bring in the message of the importance of family unity was not required. That said I still prefer it any day over the 70s adaption Willy Wonka and Chocolate Factory. Burton's return to stop motion since 1993 A Nightmare Before Christmas seemed promising and again the animation is impressive but lets itself down with a poor script and too many songs which only act as filler. I know that NMBC contained songs but that seemed more appropriate being advertised as a musical, whilst in Bride, the songs came up like a surprise and gave me the impression that it was just following the usual animation route for marketing towards family audiences.
Big Fish I thought was a wonderful film, not perfect but possibly Burton's best of this latter films (I personally feel that works could be split into too eras; The beginning - Ed Wood, and Mars Attacks - Present). Planet of the Apes on the other hand was a dreadful 're-imagining', but still entertaining if only watched the once.
My first surprise when it came to Sweeney Todd was seeing the trailer; there are no signs of a musical number until near the end. Shocked, I almost thought they decided to go back and not even make it a musical after all. In actually the film doesn't go longer then a few minutes without going into another number. It's almost back to back with song after song, probably more then a typical cinema audience is used to. My excitement for the film only came when I heard the response it got. I'm not one to follow trends or to admit to associating with anything status quo that often but this was enough to get me interested.
The film starts with completely CG made opening titles, it looks ugly but is soon forgiven. In sails Todd and his young friend Anthony who starts the film with a song telling of how things came to be. From here the film rarely slows down and keeps up a pace filled with bloody violence, tragic romance and deadpan humour, there's never a dull moment. Todd is a dark, quiet character driven by revenge who becomes a serial killer, despite his misfortunes little sympathy can be given to him but at the same time he stays away from being a complete villain. It's this contrast of images that makes the character so intriguing. The bloody mess created by Todd and Lovetts drive to feed their pie business makes a fun watch in a twisted and sadistic manner.
Sweeney Todd is bloody good.
1 comment:
Nice to know you enjoyed it. I must say, I liked the beginning though, even if it was CGI, it set the mood of the film well.
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