Ben WhitcombReview: Sweeney Todd.
September 1st 2008 20:53
It's not hard to make a somewhat decent movie adaptation of a broadway musical when the musical is already amazing. Although I guess that is not always true. Take "The Producers" for example. You can't just take the stage version and throw it onto film. Luckily we got a great musical to start with, an amazing film director, who is the only one Steven Sondheim would even let touch his musical. Throw in a dedicated, talented, well put together cast and what do you get? One amazing movie. Although I thought the casting of Jack Sparrow as Sweeney Todd was interesting. Who knew he could sing? And by Jack Sparrow, I mean, Jack Sparrow. All I saw when Johnny Depp wasn't singing was Jack Sparrow with a gothic make-over. Don't get me wrong. Depp did a great acting job in this movie. But it was just on par. The rest of the cast did a great job making you get caught up in their characters, forgetting who you were actually watching. Depp did a good job of that most of the time, Especially while singing, but the second he spoke a line of dialog it was Jack Sparrow.
Moving on. I am a big fan of the cinematography used. It reminded me of the style Burton used for Edward Scissorhands. Only better. It's nice to see a director not just stick with what they know will work but always trying to improve their style. With the art direction I could see a lot of the styles Burton has used in his past movies. Particularly his more gothic ones Like, again, Edward Scissorhands and Batman.
This movie could quite possibly be the best screen adaptation of a Broadway musical to date.Thanks in part to the great adaptation of the screenplay by John Logan. Don't know who that is? Look him up on imdb. He's got a pretty impressive resume. Sometimes the screenwriters keep the script a little too theatrical for it to translate to the screen well. Again, look at "The Producers"
This will go down as one of Tim Burton's finest works. I'm now excited to see what he is going to do with Alice in Wonderland
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