‘Sweeney Todd’:
Kevin’s Last Review
© By Kevin Paquet, 2008

This is it for me; at the ripe old age of nineteen, I’m retiring as movie reviewer for The Herald. The good news is that I really have seen just about everything in my tour of duty. A long time ago, I mentioned that the only two genres I had left to see were "kung fu" and "horror." My kung fu movie was "Rush Hour 3". This is my horror movie.

Pick up a drink and a bag of popcorn. Have a seat. The clip show consisting of my favorite movie moments, set to a marimba scoring of "Telstar," will begin shortly. But first, let me tell you about "Sweeney Todd".

I was met by old friends on the screen. Todd is played by Johnny Depp, who has been in more of the films I’ve reviewed than any other actor—six, including this one. A man capable of playing, with a generally high degree of ability, a pirate, a writer, a chocolate magnate, and a Claymation groom, he is perhaps at his best here as a deranged barber, where he not only gets to act but look crazy as well. I actually think his hair coiffed and un-coiffed itself throughout the movie. I’ll have to check next time I see it.

His nemesis is also familiar—Alan Rickman, here playing the sinister Judge Turpin, played Severus Snape in both the "Harry Potter" movies I reviewed, and was the voice of Marvin the robot in "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy".

In this plot, Turpin once ruined the life of one Benjamin Barker by putting him in prison and trying to steal his wife. Now Benjamin—back under the alias of Sweeney Todd, which I will admit does have a nicer ring to it—wants to pick up his life again.

But, as horrendous pie maker Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter, who appeared in four other movies I reviewed) explains, his wife poisoned herself. Judge Turpin has custody of Todd’s daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisener). Things rapidly devolve, and in short order Todd and Mrs. Lovett are killing people and making pies out of them, respectively.

Worth noting is the eerie presence of director Tim Burton—again, an old acquaintance—and he, too, is in high form. Most directors make themselves felt through their characters; Burton instead manifests himself primarily in his worlds. A man whose resume is probably etched on the lid of a coffin, Burton delights in the gloom. In the oppressively soulless London of "Sweeney Todd" he is at one with the soot and the grime, and, curiously, with the intertwining musical numbers as well.

Letter writers to Time magazine have remarked about how well the upbeat musicality and the incessant murdering synchronize. They do, and it’s creepy. Right from the first bloody cut, the camera never shies away, and in all the successive murders—which were always the times the audience was most quiet—it gradually became horribly clear that there is an art to slitting throats.

In Burton’s hellish, sunless panorama, Todd and Mrs. Lovett (whose pies are now actually better) manage to eke out a sort of success. There is a brief, bright window in the third quarter where it seems like they’re winning, because, once you actually manage to get past the fact that they’re murdering people and making pies out of them, it’s actually kind of impressive. I mean, the murdering and the deception and the murdering and the cannibalism and the murdering and the murdering and the murdering weren’t all that great, but, you know, the spirit was a good start. Four and a half stars out of five.

* * *

So this is it. I came in with a movie about animated superheroes and I end with a movie about a deranged but plucky barber who kills people.

In three and a half years, I’ve written 73 movie reviews. In general, I’d say I’ve seen more good movies than bad. "Sweeney Todd" isn’t the best, but it would certainly make my top ten. It has what I most value in films, which is heart. It has plenty of other organs too, but heart’s the one that counts most.

Movies are slices of lives. You meet people, you get to know them, you judge them, you bid farewell. The mark of a good movie—heart—is when you care about the characters. When you care about the characters, you’re treating them like real people.

I think the best movie I ever saw was "Bubba Ho-tep," which was about Elvis and JFK, both in a nursing home, fighting a mummy. Oh, the concept was pretty cheesy, but there was something about that film that went very, very deep. I can’t say just what. The best stories take longer to explain than to hear.

I don’t really have a specific reason for "retiring," except that I know that I am ready to move on. I think nineteen is too young to write an autobiography, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed and see if anything really interesting happens to me in the next few months.

It has truly been wonderful to do this. I have enjoyed writing for you; I thank Dick Drysdale and the staff of The Herald for giving me the opportunity to do so. Bonus points to all of you who cheered me along the way, and also to those of you who came up with reasons to complain. Nobody gets better without criticism.

That clip show I told you about is going to start in a minute, so you should put on your 3-D glasses now. I’ll just duck out and start the projector. It’s been an honor and a pleasure, ladies and gentlemen. Good night!

In memory of Reginald Paquet, 1947 - 2007