Or, more accurately titled "Tim Burton does the same thing he does in every other movie"
Now, I can't exactly say that I hate Tim Burton, but I can say that I've grown tired of his work.
Extremely tired.
I’m tired of Johnny Depp, I’m tired of Danny Elfman, and I’m tired of how every movie is “dark” and “twisted”. It’s gotten old to say the least, and for some unknown reason I keep watching his films and listening to the albums over, and over, and over. But when I heard he was taking his own spin on Sweeney Todd, one of my favorite musicals, I was excited. I mean, Sweeney Todd is already dark, so I rented the movie with high hopes to see the remake hold the same passion of the musical, and hopefully have a lot of violence, And I was severally disappointed.
So, Sweeney Todd is about Benjamin Barker, a man that was sent away by an evil judge and from his daughter, and returns craving vengeance.
I don’t know where to start, there are just so many things wrong with this movie. I almost pity Johnny Depp, he can’t even act, much less sing. Sweeney Todd is an angry, bitter old man; not a pathetic emo. I was honestly expecting him to sit down and slit his wrists at almost every point of the movie. And the chemistry between Helen Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp is forced to say the least. Now this strikes me as the worst flaw; half of Sweeney Todd is Sweeney Todd and Ms.Lovett exchanging witty banter, but when you take out the use of facial muscles and make it look like both actors would rather be anywhere but on that particular set, it just takes a turn for the annoying. Ms.Lovett is supposed to have an obsession bordering on insane, but she just looks like some Twilight fangirl drooling over a life-sized Edward cut out. Now, if Tim Burton was intending to make the movie into an ironic take on the false resurrection of the grunge movement, that would be ingenious. He doesn’t though-just like in every other movie-he takes himself so seriously, as if what he was doing was something that had never been done before. The whole thing makes it look like he found a fanfiction written about the musical and decided “You know what, I could probably though a ridiculous amount of money at this and make ten fold on t-shirts at Hot Topic!” And I’m ashamed to say that he would be right.
Now, I know that insulting something as staggeringly popular as this is controversial, and frankly I couldn’t care less. I’d call Tim Burton out and say that he needs to stop making each film the same as every other film, but frankly I’m sure he’s aware that, whatever he’s doing, it’s making him an insane amount of money(as most hack plot devices do), and I would say that I’m happy for him-but I’m not Overall, this movie get’s two stars out of five, because-credits due where it’s due-the one thing Mr.Burton is good at is visual effects. Maybe he should take up interior decorating, that would be a quirky misadventure.