Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Details

A very long two hours

Ok, I went in not thinking and hadn't twigged it was a musical, and I loathe musicals, so it was never going to be good for me. But even so, this seems a particularly bad example of the genre. Depp sings like a bad Bowie impersonator (think Phil Cornwell) and the songs are weak. When he and Rickman are singing about pretty women I couldn't restrain my laughter.

My general gripe with musicals is that the songs just get in the way - they don't move the narrative along, so you're just waiting for them to finish and get back to the real film. This is particularly true with this film. But it looks good, and when they're not arseing about with duff songs, it is engaging and enjoyable enough. It's just those songs....

[Highly rated reviewer]

MUSICAL HYBRID

I can't pretend that I wasn't aware that this film was a musical before I rented it but I thought that it would consist mainly of dialogue with a few songs thrown in. In fact it tries to straddle the styles of Les Miserables and Oliver and fails to achieve the impact of either. What lets it down as a musical is the lack of any showstopping tunes ( the pean to Joanne is about the nearest we get) and big production numbers. Neither Depp nor Bonham-Carter can sing but that doesn't matter too much because their abilities are suited to the macabre theme of the plot. There's some great support from Sacha Baron-Cohen and Timothy Spall - does he ever let us down ? - and overall the film is gripping with enough gore for a slasher flick. Watching it is to say the least an unusual experience but once you get into it I think it's well worth the perseverance.