I’ve just returned from a preview screening of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the most tsouris-causing film of 2007. And while I am going to be apparently the only person on the internet to honor Paramount’s wish that I don’t review the film until the 21st, there’s nothing that says that I can’t give my brief impression.
And that is: a very good movie, not a great movie, and it won’t be on my top 10 (maybe top 20?). As for the $64,000 question, “does it butcher the musical?” the answer is…sort of, not enough to make a Sondheim whore like myself angry, but there’s just no arguing that it’s “definitive.” The music isn’t uniformly well-treated; the good numbers are amazing, and the not-as-good numbers don’t work at all – in particular, one of my favorite songs in the show is so ill-done that I almost wish they had cut it outright.
Anyway, I liked it without loving it. More in two weeks.