Blu-Ray Review:
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
By Jason Gillard
*Screenshots are not from the Blu-Ray source.
Movie
I have previously reviewed the DVD of this movie and here is what I had to say. For those of you who don’t know, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a musical! I thought I should get that out of the way first. It’s about 80% singing and 20% dialogue. But even if you don’t like musicals I am going to suggest you give this movie a try. Tim Burton said he set out to make a movie based on the musical and not an exact copy of the musical. When I sat down to watch this film I really didn’t know what to expect. The story involves a man named Benjamin Barker. Benjamin Barker is a barber. He and is wife are very happy, until one day a judge name Turpin sees his wife and wants her for himself. So he charges Benjamin with a bogus charge and locks him away for 15 years. When Benjamin returns after the 15 year hiatus he is now the revenge seeking Sweeney Todd. From here he joins up with Mrs Lovett who makes meat pies and goes on a murderous rampage to seek revenge on the people who have caused him so much pain. I have to tell you that I loved this movie. All of the actors do there own singing and they all bring something special to their parts. I particularly liked the part of Pirelli who was played by Sacha Baron Cohen. He is hilarious and is one of the only characters to be very colourful against a background of very muted and dark colours. This is definitely a Tim Burton film as everything has a dark and moody tone. The songs in the film are very catchy and I find myself humming them as I type this. I liked the movie so much that I have watched it 3 times in the last 3 days. The movie is really bloody but if you know anything about the play this will not come as a surprise to you. For me this is one of my favourite movies I have seen in awhile. You should definitely make a trip to Fleet Street and watch this movie.
My view has not changed of this film and if anything it has gotten better!
9.5 out of 10
Video
The picture quality on the standard def DVD was very good, so I expected things to be excellent here. Luckily I was not disappointed. Almost all of this movie is bathed in a black, grimy colour pallet. There are only two scenes in the movie that have colour. So it better have a good black level. I can report that it is very good, with the dark streets of London showing every bit of detail in the shadows. The other thing I should point out is that the blood in this movie is crimson red. It really stands out against the dark colour pallet that Tim Burton has given us. There is basically no grain in this film either and everything comes across very sharp. Detail can be seen throughout, and everything has that very polished look about it. Overall this is an excellent transfer and an upgrade to the regular DVD.
9 out of 10
Audio
Stephen Sondheim's music comes across with huge intensity. The music at the beginning of the movie will send chills down your spine as you listen. The Dolby TrueHD soundtrack fills ever speaker and really brings the streets of London to life. The dialogue comes across nice and clear as well. All of the actors sing and do a really nice job. I should also point out that your sub woofer is really going to get a workout with this track. There are a bunch of scenes that have some really hefty bass. Overall it's a great soundtrack and they have done an excellent job with the lossless track.
10 out of 10
Extras
Again I am going to point out what I had said in a previous review, because the extras they include here are the same. The best part is there in HD, which is only right!
Here is what you get in the way of extras:
· Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd
· Sweeney is Alive: The Real History of The Demon Barber featurette
· Musical Mayhem: Sondheim's Sweeney Todd featurette
· Sweeney's London featurette
· Making of Sweeney Todd featurette
· Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition featurette
· Designs for a Demon Barber featurette
· A Bloody Buisness featurette
· MovieFone Unscripted with Tim Burton and Johny Depp
· The Razor's Refrain featurette
· Photo Gallery
· Theatrical Trailer
I am not going to go through everything, as there is a lot here, but I will talk about the features I enjoyed. Sweeney is Alive is an interesting documentary because there are people who believe that he was a real person. I also really liked the Making of Sweeney Todd, which has a lot of behind the scenes info. I also liked the feature called “A Bloody Business” that goes into how they created the blood gushing effects for the film. The other one that I liked was the MovieFone Unscripted. This was a back and forth between Burton and Depp. It was really interesting and funny. Overall the extras here are good and really give you a lot of detail about the production and the origins behind the story.
9.5 out of 10
Overall
Overall this movie and blu-ray are bloody fantastic! I would urge you to give it a try even though it's a musical.
9.5 out of 10
Sweeney Todd is available now from Amazon.com