Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street film review

certificate_18

SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET

One billboard tagline for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is Never Forgive Never Forget. Both sentiments are ideally suited to the film, but not perhaps for the reasons intended. It's hard to forgive director Tim Burton for creating such a derisory rendition of this classic tale. And Depp's singing is so laughable as to be unforgettable. It's right up there with Dick Van Dyke's ridiculous cockney twang in Mary Poppins.

After a striking visual opening, with the painterly London landscape bathed in muted hues, Depp opens his mouth and starts singing and it all goes downhill from there. I swear, had I ready access to one of Sweeney Todd's razors, I'd have slashed my own throat. For the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Depp confessed to basing his character Jack Sparrow on Keith Richards. Here he borrows from another celebrated British musician, adopting a singing voice that resembles a bad Anthony Newley impression, something David Bowie did rather better in his dubious Laughing Gnome phase.

Having done six films together, Burton and Depp are as well matched as cheese and crackers, Marks & Spencer or, as in this case, Abbot and Costello. There's no doubting the collaboration has been a mutually beneficial one, resulting in some wonderful work, but with familiarity comes repetition and here Depp's performance, as engaging as it is (his singing, notwithstanding) is one we've seen before.

Based on the 1979 Broadway show, Burton's Sweeney Todd is a melodramatic, musical grand guignol. Blood gushes from Todd's victims like oil exploding from a mine, giving it more the semblance of a slasher musical. And if that notion sounds faintly absurd, then that is what this is. Never more so than when Sacha Baron Cohen appears as a flamboyant street vendor with a cod Italian accent. At which point the movie devolves into Carry On Sweeney Todd.

As always, Burton's artistic flair makes for a visual delight. His Victorian London resembles a stage set, bathed in a sheen of blues and browns. For a story about a mass murderer and cannibalism, ST:TDBOFS is more comical than sinister. Though what it lacks in menace, it more than makes up for in gore. Resembling Dave Vanian from The Damned with his white streaked hair, Depp takes an overtly extravagant approach, as does Timothy Spall as Beadle Bamford, while Helena Bonham Carter's delivers a delightfully droll performance as the pie-making Mrs. Lovett.