CNET Networks Entertainment GameSpot | GameFAQs | SportsGamer | Metacritic | MP3.com | TV.com
Home | About Metacritic | About Metascores | What's New | Wireless Versions | Discussion Forums | Advertising Inquiries | Contact Us | RSS
Metacritic.com: We Deal With Criticism
     Help
> Switch to Advanced Search  
Film Video/DVD Music Games TV

Film

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

 

Wide Releases

sort by name sort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 

Limited Releases

sort by name sort by score

83 Alexandra
39 August
80 Band's Visit, The
76 Beauty in Trouble
79 Before I Forget
47 Bella
80 Bigger, Stronger, Faster*
60 Blind Mountain
55 Bra Boys
61 Brick Lane
70 Caramel
49 Children of Huang Shi, The
83 Chop Shop
82 Chris & Don. A Love Story
78 Counterfeiters, The
75 Days and Clouds
48 Death Defying Acts
54 Diminished Capacity
47 Doorman, The
64 Dreams with Sharp Teeth
73 Duchess of Langeais, The
85 Edge of Heaven, The
27 Eight Miles High
54 Elsa & Fred
81 Encounters at the End of the World
62 Expired
64 Fall, The
54 Felon
51 Finding Amanda
57 Flawless
86 Flight of the Red Balloon, The
63 Foot Fist Way, The
60 Fugitive Pieces
72 Full Battle Rattle
45 Full Grown Men
31 Garden Party
55 Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts
69 Go-Getter, The
73 Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
59 Gunnin for that #1 Spot
10 Harold
68 Heartbeat Detector
36 Holding Trevor
68 Honeydripper
55 Irina Palm
66 Jellyfish
58 Jihad for Love, A
66 Kabluey
62 Kiss the Bride
63 Kit Kittredge: An American Girl
80 Last Mistress, The
38 Life Before Her Eyes, The
74 Lou Reed's Berlin
70 Love Songs
67 Mad Detective
xx Man Named Pearl, A
64 Married Life
30 Meet Bill
33 Miss Conception
53 Mister Lonely
74 Mongol
52 Mother of Tears, The
52 My Blueberry Nights
71 My Brother Is an Only Child
85 My Winnipeg
61 On the Rumba River
69 Operation Filmmaker
61 OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of Spies
70 Outsourced
83 Paranoid Park
72 Priceless
51 Promotion, The
55 Quid Pro Quo
29 Red Roses and Petrol
79 Reprise
71 Roman de gare
77 Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
56 Sangre de mi sangre
51 Savage Grace
76 Shotgun Stories
66 Son of Rambow
70 Standard Operating Procedure
57 Stone Angel, The
61 Stuck
72 Surfwise
25 Take
81 Tell No One
56 Then She Found Me
xx Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic
71 To the Limit
54 Tracey Fragments, The
69 Transsiberian
71 Trumbo
71 Tuya's Marriage
83 U2 3D
56 Unknown Woman
86 Up the Yangtze
59 Very British Gangster, A
79 Visitor, The
61 Wackness, The
37 War, Inc.
65 Water Lilies
66 When Did You Last See Your Father?
55 Without the King
72 Woman on the Beach
64 XXY
67 Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
75 Young@Heart

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

 



Printer-Friendly Version Email This Page Discuss In Our Forums

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Paramount Pictures

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 83 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.3 out of 10
based on 39 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 239 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for graphic bloody violence

Starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Jamie Campbell Bower, Jayne Wisener, and Sacha Baron Cohen

From the dark, gothic imagination of director Tim Burton comes Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a bloody tale of music, murder, melodrama, meat pies, and one man's desperate desire for revenge. (Paramount Pictures)


GENRE(S): Crime  |  Musical  |  Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: Christopher Bond (musical adaptation)
Hugh Wheeler (musical)
Stephen Sondheim (musical)
John Logan
 
DIRECTED BY: Tim Burton  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: April 1, 2008 
Theatrical: December 21, 2007 
RUNNING TIME: 117 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Newsweek David Ansen
Depp is such a soulful presence he gives you a glimpse of this maniac's pain and pathos. Bonham Carter is extraordinary. She reinvents Mrs. Lovett from the inside out.
Read Full Review
100
The New York Times A.O. Scott
Something close to a masterpiece, a work of extreme -- I am tempted to say evil -- genius.
Read Full Review
100
The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Burton brings his signature visual style, and a pair of stock players for his stars, into this film adaptation, but he wisely follows Sondheim's lead, letting the music and spirit of the original piece show the way.
Read Full Review
100
Washington Post Peter Marks
Admirers of Stephen Sondheim who have wondered whether a riveting movie would ever be made from one of his stage musicals can put aside their doubts and worries: Tim Burton has finally accomplished it in his ravishing Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
Read Full Review
100
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Helena Bonham Carter may be Burton's inamorata, but apart from that, she is perfectly cast, not as a vulgar fishwife type but as a petite beauty with dark, sad eyes and a pouting mouth and a persistent fantasy that she and the barber will someday settle by the seaside. Not bloody likely.
Read Full Review
100
Premiere Glenn Kenny
The result is one of the odder and, certainly the most compelling of the short stream of Broadway-to-Hollywood transplants of recent years. The interweaving of the music and the visuals casts an unusual, restive spell of delight and unease.
Read Full Review
100
Time Richard Corliss
A final word for those of you who just don't care for musicals: The movie's true lyricism is less in its score than in its visual and emotional palette, and in watching Depp rise to the majesty of madness. So give Sweeney Todd a try. Even Victor, when he finally saw it, agreed: it's bloody great.
Read Full Review
91
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The impact is hypnotic.
Read Full Review
90
Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar
I know a lot of people with no knowledge of Sondheim’s musical (much less Bond’s play) are going to buy tickets for a cute holiday movie starring that handsome Johnny Depp and end up experiencing something else entirely. Bon appétit.
Read Full Review
90
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
An elegant horror film, starring Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, that takes pleasure in its own theatricality, gives pleasure with caustic wit, trusts the power of Stephen Sondheim's score and exults in flights of fancy that only a movie can provide.
90
The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Teaming with Depp, his long-time alter ego, Burton makes Sweeney a smoldering dark pit of fury and hate that consumes itself. With his sturdy acting and surprisingly good voice, Depp is a Sweeney Todd for the ages.
Read Full Review
90
LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Tim Burton has taken a hallowed classic of the modern musical theater, hemmed in the narrative from well over two hours to well under, cast confessed nonsingers in the principal roles, and somehow managed to make something magical out of it
Read Full Review
90
New York Magazine David Edelstein
Burton, bless him, constricts the space and concentrates the melodrama; he finds the perfect balance between the funereal and the ferocious. Above all, he treasures these ghouls: He digs both their bloodlust and their melancholy.
Read Full Review
88
New York Post Kyle Smith
Mighty entertainment that makes you feel sorry for the saps next door in the multiplex.
Read Full Review
88
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Sweeney Todd may haunt you in ways you’re not used to with a movie musical. At least not since “Mame.”
Read Full Review
88
USA Today Claudia Puig
Mesmerizing and highly entertaining.
Read Full Review
88
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
This Sweeney is a bloody wonder, intimate and epic, horrific and heart-rending as it flies on the wings of Sondheim's most thunderously exciting score.
Read Full Review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
Though Burton's version is faithful, the filter of his sensibility has turned it into another of his necrophilic creepshows.
Read Full Review
88
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Burton has found a vehicle sturdy enough to indulge every facet of his imagination: His great visual flair, his sense of whimsy and humor, his fondness for horror and his love of music.
Read Full Review
88
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Tim Burton's grand guignol fantasy transforms Stephen Sondheim's 1979 musical-theater piece into a cheerfully gothic morality tale.
Read Full Review
83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Andy Spletzer
Sometimes jaunty, often dark, and very stylized. In other words, it's a perfect fit for director Tim Burton.
Read Full Review
83
Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
A considerable achievement even if, on balance, it's more of a Tim Burton phantasmagoria than a Sondheim fantasia.
Read Full Review
83
Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
The movie is so finely minced a mixture of Sondheim's original melodrama and Burton's signature spicing that it's difficult to think of any other filmmaker so naturally suited for the job.
Read Full Review
83
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
They've made a movie-movie of Sweeney Todd, and if you've got the stomach and ear for it, you'll be grateful.
Read Full Review
80
Empire Kim Newman
Whether horror fans are ready for high-notes or musical buffs will appreciate Dario Argento levels of gore is an open question, but this is a rich, demented experience.
Read Full Review
80
Variety Todd McCarthy
Both sharp and fleet, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street proves a satisfying screen version of Stephen Sondheim’s landmark 1979 theatrical musical.
Read Full Review
80
Slate June Thomas
Burton's overall restraint is a welcome surprise. Shorn of his usual camp trappings, the director evokes a sadness beneath every uneasy smile he draws from the audience.
Read Full Review
80
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Well-crafted if relatively impersonal adaptation.
Read Full Review
80
Village Voice J. Hoberman
No Greek tragedy, this Hollywood Sweeney is a FUN creepy-crawly. If nothing else, Burton has learned that the successfully gruesome is its own reward.
Read Full Review
80
Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano
It's not entirely surprising that Burton's Sweeney Todd feels heavier on style than on substance -- so much that the style almost subverts the story. Still, it's a gorgeous artifact and pretty enjoyable in all.
Read Full Review
75
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Depp may not be a trained singer, but his voice is more than passable, and his presence - his Sweeney is Edward Scissorhands gone bad - is perfect. Bonham Carter sings well, too, and young Ed Sanders, as the pie shop's Dickensian apprentice, is a delight.
Read Full Review
75
Boston Globe Ty Burr
Sweeney Todd comes as close to raging at normalcy as Burton has dared. It's no coincidence that the rage is borrowed from a greater artist.
Read Full Review
70
The New Yorker Anthony Lane
The whole work drips with a camp savagery (hence the presence of Sacha Baron Cohen as Pirelli, a rival barber and faux-Italianate fop), which in turn relies on the conviction that death itself, like sexual desire, exists to be sniffed at and chuckled over.
Read Full Review
63
ReelViews James Berardinelli
In the end, the real problem with the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is that he's not as bloody fun as he should be.
Read Full Review
63
Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
With Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Tim Burton gives new meaning to the term "director's cut."
Read Full Review
50
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
The picture throws off no feeling, not even the misanthropic kind; at best, it manages a dull, throbbing energy, as if Burton were dutifully pushing his way through the material instead of shaping it.
Read Full Review
50
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
What does it say about a picture when the highest praise must go to impressive scenery?
Read Full Review
50
San Francisco Chronicle Steve Winn
What looks good on paper contracts doesn't guarantee results. Stylized but spasmodic, this "Sweeney" seems more interested in distancing than captivating an audience.
Read Full Review
40
Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
Burton's gorgeously grim film (his sixth with Depp) is loyal to Sondheim's original, both in spirit and structure; it's dark and gothic and drenched in blood, and it forgoes excessive dialogue in the name of getting quickly to the next murky, malevolent, yet strangely forgettable tune.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 239 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Larry R. gave it a4:
The singing is annoying; the songs are mediocre. If the actors would have just not sung, the movie might have been tolerable.

Joe B. gave it a10:
A Masterpiece, made even moreso by Johnny Depp. I ask, 'is there nothing this man cannot do?'

Dominic W. gave it a10:
I saw the Blu-Ray version of this film on a 1080p large screen and was treated to an awe inspiring visual treat. The film itself rates as one of the best I've seen for a very long time. And I hate musicals.

Erin B. gave it a10:
It's official! There is absolutely nothing Johnny Depp can't do! Twisted in a beautiful way!

Christopher J. gave it a9:
This musical shows what happens when hate consumes you, and it does it in a brilliantly entertaining manner. It's funny, it's clever, it's visually striking, it's consuming, it's great. It's a modern tragedy.

Joe G. gave it an8:
Good goryish film but it has a bit of a poor ending.

Brandon M. gave it a9:
One of my favorite films! I love how the music was used to tell the story rather than to overdue the certain topic at hand; as most musical films do. This film reminds me of the old Tim Burton films, with the dark pale skin, sunken eyes, and dark backgrounds (even though its day). Johnny Depp was extremely good in this part, even with him singing! I highly recommend this film.

Read more user comments...

Discuss this movie in our forums

Return to top of page
Home | FILM | DVD/VIDEO | MUSIC | GAMES | TV | Forums | About Metacritic metacritic.com

Popular on CBS sites: World News | Fantasy Football | Amy Winehouse | Baseball | E3 | Batman | Firefox 3 | iPhone 3G

About CNET Networks | Jobs | Advertise

© 2008 CNET Networks, Inc., a CBS Company. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use