Title Analysis By Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Stephen Sondheim, John Logan, Richard Za TROY SAYS:
Great 8.4
"The violence leaves a 'bad taste in your mouth,' but I still recommended Sweeney to content creators because of its artistry. Fantastic music, of course. Sweeney Todd is a master-class in musical theater lyric and music composition. Gorgeous title sequence. Gorgeous cinematography. The humorous interaction between Depp & Sasha Baron Cohen is unforgettable. Everybody acts at top form. Painfully dark. Amazing story. Probably inspired by the much cheerier biblical story of Susanna. The story, while brilliant, has always suffered from 4 major problems:
The young sailor should have discovered Joanna on a tip from her Dad (Sweeney), not by the incredible coincidence.
People would have caught on sooner to the humans-being-made-into-meat-pies scheme.
The villain characters are written as cartoons, all bad, with no redeeming qualities.
The story is brutally dark and abusively depressing.
The movie goes several giant leaps further into the dark side, making the film often unwatchable because of its frequent, up-close, massively disgusting throat-slashing gore. Despite these missteps and structural weaknesses, the film is still a virtually unchallenged masterwork in almost every department. With a stronger redemptive counterpoint, and less gore, this would be an unbeatable film of an unbeatable script." GENIE SAYS:
Pleasing 8.2
βSplendid looking, GREAT music, very well acted. The story starts out interesting but ends up vomitously sickening. The gore would definitely scar anyone, especially young children. On the other hand, there's no sex and only a little profanity. Recommended only for its music, acting, and cinematography.β
