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DVD:
Blu-Ray:

Cert:

Cat.no: DY21175

Running time: 111 minutes

Year: 2007

Pressing: 2008

Region(s): 2, PAL

Chapters: 24 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1

Languages: English

Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Icelandic

Widescreen: 1.85:1

16:9-Enhanced: Yes

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 9

Price: £23.99 (DVD); £27.99 (Blu-Ray)

Extras: Audio Descriptive Track, 8 Featurettes, Photo Gallery

Vote and comment on this film:

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Director:

Tim Burton (Alice in Wonderland, Batman, Batman Returns, Beetlejuice, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Frankenweenie, Mars Attacks, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Planet of the Apes, Sleepy Hollow)

Producers:

John Logan, Laurie MacDonald and Richard D Zanuck

Lyrics:

Stephen Sondheim

Music:

Brian Reitzell

Cast :

Sweeney Todd: Johnny Depp
Mrs Lovett: Helena Bonham Carter
Judge Turpin: Alan Rickman
Beadle: Timothy Spall
Signor Pirelli: Sacha Baron Cohen
Anthony: Jamie Campbell Bower
Beggar Woman: Laura Michelle Kelly
Johanna: Jayne Wisener
Toby: Ed Sanders
Man in Street: Anthony Head (uncredited)

Sweeney Todd is Tim Burton's latest collaboration with Johnny Depp and is based on the musical by Stephen Sondheim. Todd comes to London in 1785 after 15 years away in prison, to search for his wife and daughter who were taken out of his life by Judge Turpin, with revenge on his mind. Before too long he meets up with pie maker Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) who, in her opening ditty, reveals that her pies are crusty, mouldy and would make Gordon Ramsay vomit, while nearby Mrs Mooney gets round this problem by nabbing cats off the street and putting them into the pies that she sells in the street. Meanwhile, Anthony (James Campbell Bower) wants to save the young Johanna (Jayne Wisener), a girl in her late teens who has been sort-of held captured in the house of the Judge, such that she's not allowed out of the house but she's got a very plush bedroom. Turpin is the 'Mr Evil' of the piece and, as such, is fittingly played by the excellent Alan Rickman. Todd wants to exorcise Turpin from the face of the city and he knows just how to do it, but what was the fate of his family and where does Johanna fit into all this for him?

(Just a quick heads-up at this point as the next paragraph has some potential plot spoilers - although these will be of no surprise to anyone who knows the basic story - so go to the next one that begins 'Like any musical...') I thought this might be different than the average Burton/Depp collaboration, and it is as I've never seen him do a musical before, but while it's gory in a few places it's not as consistent nor as often as I understood it to be. Depp and Carter work together - him with the blade and a contraption set up that quickly aids the disposal of new clients, and her with the pies and her fresh supply of meat. Timothy Spall is fine as Turpin's underling, Beadle, while 'Ali G/Borat'-creator Sacha Baron Cohen takes the role of Signor Pirelli, a rival barber who used to work for Todd and now wants to blackmail him in return for not revealing his true identity. Like any musical, several of the songs go on too long or become repetitive. However, when it is good, the look of it is fantastic. The gory effects are, if you'll pardon the pun, bloody well done. You just can't see the join of where the blood would be coming from, assuming Depp didn't slash them all himself and I'm sure we would've heard about that were that the case! I would've given this film 6/10 as it does rather go on a bit, but bumped that up to 7/10 as there's a surprise or two that I never saw coming - mainly because I never try to second guess films, I just let them tell me the story.

If Tim Burton knows how to do one thing brilliantly it's the visuals, and he doesn't disappoint here. The print is crisp and clear for the 16:9 image (that's definitely the ratio as opposed to 1.85:1, this being easy to tell on a TV that has no overscan - in this case a Panasonic Viera ) and it really portrays the grimness of its Victorian-era premise, making it look even less welcome than an episode of Eastenders and as if everyone's got some sort of terminal disease, such is their pasty looks. There's no DTS soundmix available on this DVD, but the Dolby Digital one, mostly based around music reaching to many a crescendo, really blows you away and I can't fault it at all.

Aside from the audio descriptive narration running alongside the main feature, the bulk of the extras come on a separate disc and consist of 8 featurettes and a photo gallery, but oddly there's no trailer. What is here is presented in 16:9 anamorphic with subtitles available in several languages. Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd (26:00): The director and the two leads are obviously the most important people involved, but there's plenty of comments from other key cast and crew members including an old friend of Depp's, Bruce Witkin, who helped him with his vocals when it came to the training. The singing comes up for all the other cast on show in this segment as well. Sweeney Todd: The Real History of The Demon Barber (20:06): Well, amongst some clips and a lot of chat from Tim Burton and many others including a guy from the Oxford English Dictionary who looks like he's been stung with an electric cattle prod, we hear about the legend that is the man, but as it was so long ago no-one's alive to tell the tale of whether he did those nasty deeds any more. Then again, there weren't many left alive at the time, either. Musical Mayhem: Sondheim's Sweeney Todd (12:00): The composer speaks, mostly, and gives some further background to the character. Sweeney's London (16:10): According to London was a dirty place to live, full of alcoholics and where cholera, TB and other nasty diseases were rife. So, at least the latter of those three problems has been eradicated today. Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition (19:13): As has been pointed out this film spawns from musical theatre. The Grand Guignol Theatre opened in Paris in 1897 as an experiment in naturalist drama, which seems to translate as where a lot of really weird shit goes on. Comparisons are made with the film in this segment. Designs for a Demon Barber (8:52): This piece is about Costume and Set Design A Bloody Business (8:49): Ah, I do like this one. This is how they do the blood-spurting effects, as told by Neal Scanlan, in charge of the special make-up effects and prosthetics. It's a work of genius how they pull it off when it's described in full. He confirms that there are 8 pints of blood in the human body and how AT LEAST that many is used in the average effect! Razor's Refrain (8:36): Still shots zoomed in or out, set to musical piece from the film. It's like getting all the musical pieces in one segment. Photo Gallery: Does exactly what it says on the tin, with 52 pics. So, a fantastic set of extras for an avid fan to take great enjoyment from, running over almost exactly two hours - so longer than the film itself, and even worth a look if you're not Burton's biggest fan. The film contains 24 chapters, which is fine for this length of film, there are five languages for subtitles and the opening menu features a spooky soundtrack and some subtle animation all in keeping with the film's content. One problem with the Scene Selection screen though. It lists the chapters as "1-2", "3-4", etc, so, basically, you can only select odd-numbered chapters! Come on, Warner, you were pulling a similar trick way back in 1998 with DVDs like Disclosure! Haven't you grasped how this works after 10 years?

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2008.

DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.

PC games reviewed by the editor are on: