All the musical aspects are done well – Depp and Carter both prove themselves to be quite capable singers (Carter maybe even a little better than Depp, although my ear isn’t exactly the most reliable), and Sacha Baron Cohen has a fun song near the beginning as a rival barber. The young Ed Sanders is also excellent as a boy who figures his way quite prominently into the story.

But aside from the performances, I don’t know. I wasn’t really thrilled, and I can’t quite pinpoint why. It just seemed like a slog. A really twisted black comedy would’ve been cool, an out-and-out tragedy would’ve been fine, or a love story, sure, but Sweeney Todd is an uncomfortable mish-mash of a lot of things. There are moments of greatness overshadowed by simple distaste. Not tastelessness – that can be fun – just a generally unclean feeling. And just because that’s the point doesn’t make it good.

Movie Grade: C+

Synopsis:

Johnny Depp will star as the titular Demon Barber of Fleet Street from the award-winning Stephen Sondheim musical thriller.

The Broadway production of Sweeney Todd, with Sondheim's music and lyrics and a book by Hugh Wheeler based on the play by Christopher Bond, opened in 1979 and won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Its mix of the comic, the dramatic and the macabre held together by Sondheim's movie-like score has had hundreds of productions throughout the world. A highly acclaimed revival is now playing in New York.

The story of Sweeney Todd is of a wrongfully imprisoned barber in Victorian England who sets out to seek revenge on the judge who imprisoned him. The plot is foreshadowed in the first lines of the opening number: "Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd./His skin was pale and his eye was odd./He shaved the faces of gentlemen/Who never thereafter were heard of again."