e_bourne

A better description of Johnny Depp couldn't be written.

I had great reservations about "Sweeney Todd." I first saw it in Toronto with Angela Lansbury and Len Cariou. It blew me away. I've gone out of my way to see and hear every production since then, and I'm a huge Sondheim fan. I maintained doubts about the casting.

However, a third of the way into the movie, I leaned over to Mark and whispered, "Johnny Depp really can do anything, can't he?"
At which my spouse sagely nodded.

Depp is ferocious. Intimidating, and the first Sweeney I've seen who is really scary. I truly believed this man was capable of terrible things, and his screen presence more than makes up for the lack in voice that others, such as ironymaiden have commented on from listening to the soundtrack.

He's a genuinely frightening Sweeney, which none of the great baritones were.

A few days before going we watched the George Heard/Patti LuPone version, which we have on DVD and I have to say Helena Bonham Carter's Mrs. Lovett is a direct descendant of Patti LuPone's. She's got nothing to be embarrassed about. She did a fine job with the role.

I loved the young Toby.  Johanna was fine in her brief appearances, as was the beggar woman. Anthony was a bit problematic, but the love story is so secondary in this Sweeney I didn't much care.  I never really have cared about Anthony.

Nothing felt missing. Some of the songs were curtailed, but it worked in the context of the movie. Judge Turpin's flagellation song was cut, but then it often is, and it was replaced with some other devices that made up for it and were equally creepy. The Beadle was dreadful and nasty. There was a real Victorian flair to several moments in the movie that I won't give away because they delighted me with their Dickensian awfulness, and I want you, gentle reader, to be egually delighted and appalled.

There were only two scenes that were a tad disappointing: the beginning of "By the Sea" bewildered me, but my kvetching is minor. And I see no reason why they couldn't have stuck the ballad in at the end, during the credits. It makes perfect sense, in context, why they couldn't in the beginning of the movie, but please, they used it thematically throughout the film, give it to us at least during the credits. I was sad about that.

I thought it was fabulous. I truly did. I'll buy the DVD for sure. London looked as awful and stagy as it ought to, IMO, the pie shop looked like no place a decent person ought ever, anytime, to eat in. It was grand. I loved it, and I wasn't sure I would, so it was a good surprise.