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Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Forgettable music. Stupid plot.

• Character/Structure-Plot

I disconnected from the movie at the scene where Sweeney and the “Italian” con artist have a shaving contest. Sweeney enters the market, sees the Judge’s right-hand man whom he wants to kill and then…the movie goes on a long tangent with this new character and it takes way too long to return to the main path. Some will argue that the sequence with the Italian is an obstacle to Sweeney’s objective. I say it could’ve been handled differently, that Sweeney and the Italian could’ve recognized each other before the showdown. Or…whatever, I don’t care to think of alternatives when I’m so displeased.

Another tangent is Sweeney and the widow deciding to use people for the meat-pie business. What does that have to do with the main story of Sweeney’s revenge? If you say it’s a development to his relationship with the widow, then I’ll answer it’s poorly executed. I could see the widow doing it with the first corpse, and then let us assume she’ll seek a regular supply. But I don’t see why Sweeney turns into a mass murderer of innocents.

Thanks to the boy, Sweeney discovers where his daughter is. But he doesn’t do anything about it. He advises the boy, but the boy ends up doing pretty much everything to save her. Ridiculous.

There are too many exact shots of the dead bodies falling through the chute from Sweeney’s rigged chair to the basement. Once is enough. Five or six times doesn’t make it more gruesome.

• Logic

Sweeney sets up shop in the same location as where he lived 15 years earlier. And only the Italian recognizes him? Yeah, right.

Epiphany scene from the stage production.

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