Director:  Tim Burton  Johnny Depp ... Sweeney Todd  Helena Bonham Carter ... Mrs. Lovett  Alan Rickman ... Judge Turpin  Timothy Spall ... Beadle Bamford  Sacha Baron Cohen ... Signor Adolfo Pirelli

The Beginning of the movie; we watch Benjamin Barker and his wife going about their daily lives, so madly in love and we see the jealousy of Judge Turpin who gets Benjamin Barker sent to prison on trumped up charges.

Move forward 15 years and Benjamin Barker returns on a ship from somewhere and seems to renounce his previous name and starts to use the now infamous name Sweeny Todd.

He returns to find out that his wife had poisoned herself whilst he was in prison and his daughter is now in the hands of Judge Turpin.  So he starts to get his revenge on Judge Turpin by using his hair dressing skills.

He walks into a pie shop run by Mrs Lovett and learns that it is the worst pie shop in London. No one buy any pies from here due to that fact. She tells him about a Benjamin Barker that died upstairs, unaware of the fact that he is in fact that man.  He takes his old room and starts to offer his old service as a barber, but with the intention of getting revenge.

As Sweeny and Mrs Lovett are taking a mid day stroll, they notice a young boy that is trying to sell a miracle elixir and he watches as this boy tries to sell this substance.  Sweeny tells the boy that it is not what they are trying to sell and this is where he meets Signor Adfolo Pirelli for the first time.  They have a clean shave contest but due to the fact that Adfolo spends so much time singing, Sweeny wins and has to pay the five pounds bet.

Adfolo follows him home and tries to bribe Sweeny into giving him half the takings of his shop and this is where Sweeny kills his first victim.  Mrs Lovett is of course is upset and between them, they think of a cunning plan to dispose of the bodies in pies.

 

This is where the start of removing the "shit" of the streets starts.  People that no one cares about and would not miss. He sings his way through killing all the people that he and Mrs Lovett don't like and that is pretty much the movie.  There is a strange women across the street, that tries to tell the passers by that there is something strange coming  out of chimney across the road but no one listens. This movie is a musical and a strange one at that.  Johnny Depp looks like he died at some point in the past but no one told him.  He seems to have an affiliation for David Bowie, or at least sings like him in the movie.  In the UK, we have a movie reviewer that does an impersonation of  David Bowie and Depp reminds me of him.

The movies isn't too bad; It does seem to be another self indulgent project for Tim Burton and is a quite bloody but the blood didn't seemed to bother me.  There are some very well orchestrated scenes and  they take your eyes away from the gushing blood that comes from the throats that Sweeny slits.  It is not a film for the whole family to watch but is entertaining.  I have drunk 3 beers by the time the film had finished and perhaps that has clouded my judgement.  If you like Tim Burtons previous musicals, then you will know what to expect.