DVD Review:

Sweeney Todd

2-disc Special Edition

Movie

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.

9.5 out of 10

Video

This transfer on this film is very good.  The movie is very dark and there is not very much colour at all.  Most of the colour in the movie comes from either Pirelli’s costume or the crimson red blood that drips from Sweeney Todd’s victims.  Luckily the black levels are really good.  Everything is sharp and the red from the blood is a big contrast to the black and muted colours of the rest of the film.

8.5 out of 10

Audio

The Dolby Digital 5.1 track is very strong in this movie.  There are not a lot of directional effects but the orchestral score came across loud and clear.  The dialogue also comes across clear.  When the movie starts, the bass in this section was very tight and loud, and it really set’s the tone for the rest of the movie.  As a musical this audio transfer is a perfect 10. 

10 out of 10

Extras

Before I talk about what is a very stacked 2-disc edition, I wanted to mention the packaging.  The DVD comes with one of those cardboard sleeves.  But this is a very interesting cardboard sleeve.  It’s mostly cut out on the front so you can see the cover art below.  But all around the cut-out are razors.  It makes for very sharp packaging and I commented on it immediately.

On the first disc the only extra you get is called Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd.  This features on the set commentaries from Tim Burton and Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.  They discuss the films soundtrack and the character development and also go into costume design. 

The second disc includes these extras:

·  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 this is a 2-disc set that actually can call itself that.

9 out of 10

Overall

This is a great movie that I think everyone should at least experience.  The transfer is great the audio is spectacular and the extras are all well worth your time.  I cannot recommend this DVD set any higher!

9.5 out of 10

Highly Recommended.