Sweeney Todd

An 18 certificate musical! Not unique, but pretty unusual. Clearly Tim Burton knows what people expect from him and delivered this one quite well. I liked the music, although sometimes the lyrics were a little hard to understand, but the counterpoint melodies were interesting and reminded me in some ways of the clever weaving of songs in Moulin Rouge. Johnny Depp plays to his strengths – perhaps now becoming typecast as number one weirdo actor – but it was Helena Bonham Carter who stole the show. As Mrs Lovett she was playing a part she was ideally suited to. On the whole the film moves along quite well, but there were a few minutes towards the middle where it slows down quite noticeably. The cinema audience seemed to get quite restless for a time. A quick mention for Sacha Baron Cohen. A good part for him, but he was too much like Borat and I found that a distraction.