First Look - Sweeney Todd Review- Page 2

[pab]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 4:20pm

'Sweeney Todd' a marketing challenge

Updated On: 11/15/07 at 04:20 PM

[EganFan2]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 4:26pm

Joel Schlockmeister should have bowed out and Burton should've stepped in for the Phantom film.

But then, we might've had Johnny Depp as the Phantom and Helena Bonham Carter as Christine. Hmmm.

[BDrischBDemented]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 4:34pm

No, Helena would be an awesome Carlotta. But just imagine, Christopher Lee and Albert Finney as Andre and Firmin, perhaps Ewan MacGregor as Raoul... Madame Giry would probably still be Miranda Richardson...

[thespian geek]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 4:52pm

perhaps Ewan MacGregor as Raoul...

But, but. Patrick Wilson!

[BDrischBDemented]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 5:10pm

I know, I know. But think like a Burton!

Admittedly, I'm glad he didn't try working with POTO, given there's only so much you can do with that. I think visually Joel had some good stuff, it just fell apart almost everywhere else. Thankfully Tim Burton has shown (IMO) that he can actually cast convincing and excellent actors and make pretty decent films.

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 5:30pm

I'm very excited about this!

One thing I noticed... people say the Act II "Johanna" is intact, but it isn't... all of Johanna's singing of "married on Sunday" from the asylum has been cut. I didn't miss it until I thought about it. Something seemed a bit "bare."

The song was originally a quartet. Now it's a trio. (Sweeney, Anthony, Beggar Woman... no Johanna.)

Doesn't sound like it harmed the story or the music at all, however.

Can't wait to see the whole film!

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 5:46pm

Right, that has been cut. You really don't even notice it. I think it would've disrupted the flow of the scene to have to cut to her singing out of the bars then and at the end of the song.

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 5:51pm

Especially since "Kiss Me" isn't in the movie.

She'd be doing a small reprise of a song she hadn't sung previously.

[spidey_882]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 6:26pm

I cannot even verbalize how excited I am for this movie to be coming out soon!

P.S. Thanks so much for the heads up, NJluvstheatre!

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 6:41pm

OMG, that was gorgeous/intense. Johnny sounds great and the guys that plays Anthony has a GORGEOUS voice.

[zooxanthellae]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 9:13pm

Wow I'm so excited! Thanks for all the excellent reviews everyone! I'm so glad this is turning out to be as good as hoped for! I hope this goes on to get some Oscar recognition.

I feel like I should probably know this, but is it officially opening nation-wide in the US on the 21st? It has been changed many times...

[Scarywarhol]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 9:47pm

according to the fox news article, it's opening in about 700-800 theatres December 21st, so everyone's chances are good.

[zooxanthellae]

Posted: 11/15/07 at 10:26pm

Sweet, thanks! Now I have to find out if my local theatre is having a midnight showing!

[Rentaholic2]

Posted: 11/16/07 at 1:00am

I wonder why they cut the last part of the beggar woman's part where she goes off saying "Alms, alms...." I don't know why, I just really like that part, especially in the recording of the revival where she sort of belts it out.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 11/16/07 at 1:07am

The Beggar Woman's part is somewhat downplayed in the film, I think partly because if she had as much screen time as she has on stage, in closeup, it would be pretty obvious what the twist ending is.

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 11/16/07 at 2:56am

I agree.

[JasonM12480]

Posted: 11/17/07 at 12:40am

Another review from "The Envelope":

http://goldderby.latimes.com/awards_goldderby/2007/11/johnny-sings-an.html

Johnny Depp sings! And 'Sweeney Todd' rocks!

After months of breathless anticipation — Can Johnny Depp sing? Has director Tim Burton used Sweeney Todd's vile razor to cut out the heart and soul of a classic by gutting one hour of the original Broadway musical? — Burton finally unveiled a huge slice (17 minutes) of his film adaptation of a Broadway masterpiece to a screaming crowd at Lincoln Center Wednesday night.

The verdict based upon the crowd's riotous ovation at the end: "Sweeney Todd" is a serious contender to win the Oscar for best picture, just as I've been telling you for months.

Oh, yes, and Johnny handles the singing just fine. He'll never croon arias at the Metropolitan Opera, but he manages to carry the tunes and thus sustain the dramatic thrust of a story that would be as emptied of blood as Sweeney's victims if he didn't. Clearly, he muddles through here and there and no doubt much digital trickery was used in the sound edit bay after filming to fix weak spots, but he's no Lucy Ball butchering "Mame," hallelujah. Even at those peak moments when he can't dodge aiming for the high notes of "Joanna" — while "Sweeney" Broadway nuts like me wince in the audience, knowing they're coming, and fearing the worst — he nails it. Not magnificently, not like when Tony winner Len Cariou or Emmy winner George Hearn performed the score with roof-rattling bravado, but capably.

In a very large way, Burton re-invented the Broadway Sweeney. Sweeney's no longer a bedraggled, haggard, frumpy old man who'd be little noticed on the streets of old London, but rather a dashing young Johnny Depp with a shock of white hair that sprung from his brain after suffering the horror of being imprisoned for 18 years on a bogus charge. (That's the reason Depp gives for his skunk hair look — it's really not meant to be a rip-off of "Bride of Frankenstein," he claims.)

And much of Mrs. Lovett's role has been slashed out, deliberately, even though she was largely the heart and soul of the original musical and even though the part is now played on screen by Burton's fiancé, Helena Bonham Carter. Curiously, Mrs. Lovett is reinvented dramatically, too — she isn't noticeably wacko on film like she was portrayed on stage by Angela Lansbury with goofy expressions, crossed eyes and squealing voice. Carter's Mrs. Lovett seems to be a centered, lonely woman with confidence and carriage, who is still hopelessly smitten with a fiend who barely realizes she's near.

Burton has re-imagined this Sweeney as a classic Hollywood horror movie in the old melodramatic tradition of Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney and it works, creepily so.

But that is what makes this film, as brilliant as it seems to be, an Oscar cliffhanger. Academy voters don't choose horror movies for best picture — they even spurned the few classics that managed to get nominated like "The Exorcist," but they have picked violent movies like last year's "The Departed" and others that celebrated a murderous fiend like Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs." Maybe this time they can now, finally, accept a genre film of the classic horror variety since "Sweeney Todd" proved itself as high art on Broadway first.

Which brings us to the most horrible part of this horror film: the generous spouts and fountains and floods and gushes of blood we see over and over as Sweeney applies his razor to the throats of witless men who innocently step into his upstairs barber shop for a shave.

Yes, the scenes are disgustingly graphic. Burton's camera gets up close so the blood spits right out at the audience as the eyes of Sweeney's victims bug out in terror. But the scenes are so outrageous that they seem unreal, repeated one after another as Sweeney sings of his longing love for his daughter held captive by evil Judge Turpin who sent Sweeney to prison so he could steal his wife. Believe it or not, those throat-slashing scenes aren't the most shocking parts. Worse — what makes the audience shriek and jump from their seats — is watching the bodies drop to the basement through a trap door, landing on their heads, going splat, then we hear the slashed necks crack. Again and again. You can't believe the audacity of this filmmaker as you watch. And you can't help but love Burton for making you cheer on every next flick of Sweeney's revenge-wreaking razor.

If those notoriously squeamish academy members can swallow all the blood and endure the cracking necks in "Sweeney," it will not be another "Dreamgirls," not another Broadway adaptation that flops at the Oscars. This one is a real guys' musical. The mistake I made last year believing so strongly in "Dreamgirls" was forgetting who does the Oscar voting: old white guys who can't, or refuse to, empathize with hip, young black chicks. Those guys have worked long years in a cutthroat biz in Hollywood — Sweeney's their man.

And let us not forget the last musical to win best picture — "Chicago" — a film that asked its audience to cheer on people to get away with murder.

[mateo]

Posted: 11/17/07 at 12:56am

"a guys' musical" ... I hate that SH*T.

[best12bars]

Posted: 11/17/07 at 10:01am

Did he write that "review" with is foot? I'm glad he liked it, but clumsy would be an understatement as far as his writing.

Hey, just because I don't feel like starting YET ANOTHER Sweeney Movie thread... there are some cool Web treats on the MySpace page for the film. Including a very creepy and wonderful desktop image of Helena as Mrs. Lovett. Love it!!