Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2-Disc Special Edition)
May 2008 Reviewed by: Josh Barber Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

The sixth collaboration between Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton is filled with all the gothic gloom audiences have come to expect. This time Depp is Sweeney Todd, the murderous barber of English folklore, in an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's hit Broadway musical. Helena Bonham Carter is Todd's meat-pie-making neighbor, Mrs. Lovett, and together the pair exists in a stylized, bleak and colorless world.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a macabre story, as it must be, but Burton manages to infuse it with a bit of light-hearted humor as well. Many of the songs and plot threads from the stage show have been excised, not only to trim the running time but also to focus the story more on Todd himself. However, there's one bit of info that is fairly important but is never mentioned in the film: Todd is an escaped prisoner, which explains his use of a pseudonym.

Since Burton's unique visual style is half the draw of this film, the DVD would be severely at fault if things weren't presented well. And considering how dark the majority of the movie is, it would have been very easy to lose all the details in that inky blackness. Fortunately, this is only a problem in the earliest scenes. Wherever light does fall, however, we see crisp details without overbearing edge enhancement. In fact, other than the blacks swallowing everything they touch, this is a very nice presentation.

Sweeney Todd obviously isn't going to be one of those movies where the major work of the soundtrack is a quiet conversation. This is a big, bombastic musical, and though the majority of the dialogue still comes out of the center channel, there's good use of positioning as the music and the sounds of slashing razors surround you.

Disc 1 offers a solitary special feature, "Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd," which is a behind-the-scenes look at casting, character development, song recording, and costume design. There's no commentary on the film, but as a one-disc release, Sweeney Todd is still a decent offering.

But if you get the two-disc set, you'll find plenty of extra features. We begin with "Sweeney is Alive: The Real History of the Demon Barber," which traces the character's origins in the pages of Penny Dreadfuls, the pulp fiction of the mid 19th century, and discusses how real-life examples may have helped to shape the fiction. "Musical Mayhem: Sondheim's Sweeney Todd" delves into how the Broadway musical was created. "Sweeney's London" is a nice tour of Fleet Street and the history of the city in general. "Making of Sweeney Todd" is just what it sounds like. "Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition" isn't exactly related to the film, but that doesn't make the study of the theatrical presentation of realistic, gory physical horror any less interesting.

"Designs for a Demon Barber" breaks down the costume design in greater detail, and "A Bloody Business" takes us through the visual effects. "MovieFone Unscripted with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp" is a chance for the two to answer fan questions and interview each other. "The Razor's Refrain" may be the most superfluous of the extras, since it's just a slideshow of on-set photography set to an abbreviated version of the film's score.

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