Movie Review Haiku for Sweeny Todd

By Matthew J Erickson

Blade bites, blood gushes.
Why say it when you can sing?
No more pie thank you.

Tim Burton’s latest project with muse, Johnny Depp, takes the idea of being a musical into another stratosphere. Hardly a phrase is uttered that is not sung.

Dark, brooding, melodies fill the entire movie enticing you to sleep like so many sirens perched upon the rocky shores of dream land. It was a mistake to watch this film at a local movie house whose gimmick is to provide it’s patrons with beer, pizza, and oh so comfy couches on which to recline and view the flik. Normally, quaffing brew and scarfing down pizza during a movie seems like a win, win for everyone involved. However, I was barely finished with my first mug of pale ale when I began to drift off into the land of the Sandman as Johnny, Helen and others sang, and sang, and then, sang some more. Only the sharp elbow of my girlfriend and my full bladder enabled me to fight off Morpheus and make it through to the dismal demise of the demon barber. The singing aside, I can say that the plot itself was somewhat entertaining. It was laden with morbid dark humor and I found the throat cutting, pie making montage outlandishly entertaining. Sacha Baron Cohen stood out as a child beating rival barber and that one guy who played the bad guy in the first Die Hard movie also did a pretty good job and was probably the only one in the film whom I do not remember bursting into song every time he showed up. Then again, perhaps he did while I was catching a little cat nap.

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