Plot:The infamous story of Benjamin Barker, a.k.a Sweeney Todd, who sets up a barber shop down in London which is the basis for a sinister partnership with his fellow tenant, Mrs. Lovett. Based on the hit Broadway musical.
Johnny Depp plays the title role, or should I say evolves into it. Initially, his character is named Benjamin Barker, and he's a happily married father in Victorian London.
But an evil judge named Turpin (Alan Rickman at his oil-slick smoothest) lusts after Barker's wife. So he wrongly sentences Barker to prison, seduces and poisoningly induces Barker's wife, and takes Barker's baby daughter as his "charge," to await the day when she is old enough to marry him.
Fifteen years later, Barker escapes from prison, returns to London, and adopts the persona of barber Sweeney Todd. At first, he intends only upon avenging Turpin. But he soon discovers he has an other-barberly way with a razor. And as it happens, Todd's landlady (Helena Bonham Carter), an unsuccessful baker, could use some fresh ingredients to sell her pies.
Oh, and this is a musical, too -- albeit the bloodiest musical ever, with shot after shot of Todd severing the necks of bourgeois customers whom he feels have it coming.
Johnny Depp's performance in this is one of his best by far. He stole every scene he was in. Helena Bonham Carter gives a great performance as Mrs. Lovett and she and Johnny make a great pair.The supporting cast is all amazing. Alan Rickman could make "High School Musical" entertaining. He is so deliciously evil in this movie, and you can tell his sidekick, Timothy Spall's Beadle Bamford, is having a great time with his sniveling character. Sacha Baron Cohen is, of course hilarious as Pirelli.
The dark humour is great, the look is stunning, Depp is gloriously unhinged while remaining believable.It's as tasty a cinematic pie as any filmmakers could have made out of the fearsome, poisoned stew of the story of the Demon Barber.
7.5/10
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