Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

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.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Something close to a masterpiece, a work of extreme -- I am tempted to say evil -- genius.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The impact is hypnotic.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Mighty entertainment that makes you feel sorry for the saps next door in the multiplex.

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.”

USA Today Claudia Puig

Mesmerizing and highly entertaining.

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.

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.

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.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Tim Burton's grand guignol fantasy transforms Stephen Sondheim's 1979 musical-theater piece into a cheerfully gothic morality tale.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Andy Spletzer

Sometimes jaunty, often dark, and very stylized. In other words, it's a perfect fit for director Tim Burton.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

A considerable achievement even if, on balance, it's more of a Tim Burton phantasmagoria than a Sondheim fantasia.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Well-crafted if relatively impersonal adaptation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

With Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Tim Burton gives new meaning to the term "director's cut."

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.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

What does it say about a picture when the highest praise must go to impressive scenery?

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.

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.