Rapid Review: Sweeney Todd
Saw Sweeney Todd this weekend, and enjoyed it much more than I'd expected to.
Here's my thing about musicals: I don't hate them. I just hate it when they take themselves too seriously. When there's dancing and singing involved it's very easy to go of the tracks of drama and into melodrama. And, though I know this makes me awful and closed-minded, I have a really hard time not laughing when people burst into a song in a way that I'm supposed to find moving rather than mirthful.
So -- Guys and Dolls I like. Les Miserable, not so much.
I dug Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Dreamgirls was too much.
Like Chicago, I feel like Sweeney Todd split the difference pretty well. I never saw the stage show, so I have to assume that most of the credit for the movie's tone should go to director Tim Burton, who has spent decades mixing the dramatic and the hilarious to great effect (Beetlejuice, Batman, Ed Wood).
The plot seems tailor-made for Burton -- a strange alchemy of Dickensian morality play and morbid, surreal storytelling worthy of Edgar Allan Poe. Which is a perfect playground for Johnny Depp (who seems almost preternaturally attracted to the weird), Helena Bonham Carter (who seems to have made a career of playing kind of creepy goth chicks) and Sacha Baron Cohen (who, with Borat under the belt, took to the sliminess and ambiguous nationality of his character like a fish to water).
I won't ruin any major plot points for you, but I will say this: if you're hoping for a happy ending, you might be better off seeing PS. I Love You.