Ghostbusters (2016)

Running Time: 117 minutes

Media: Streamed via Netflix

Okay, I find myself at a bit of a crossroads at the moment, trying to figure out how to approach this movie in a more critical yet fair sense while not appearing fanboy or mysoginistic... I think I have a way to do it so I'll just run with it...

This movie isn't perfect by any means. The four leading ladies who are all brilliant comic actors in their own right pull this movie off reasonably with a little cringe-worthy humor, but I must admit I'm a little bit sold on this movie paying some homage to its original source despite the fact there were times I felt they were trying. Like the original Ghostbusters film, it's meant to be a light-hearted film with comedic bits as the four main characters do what they can to save New York (and the world as we know it) from a full supernatural invasion... Unlike the original, it's gag after gag after gag after gag after gag... You know the family friend or uncle that consistently tries to tell jokes over and over again without taking the time to take a breath? It's like that... It feels like being clubbed to submission with a water-soaked towel - you can handle the pain, but after the sixth or seventh time of being hit, you kinda just want to roll over and take it without a care in the world... The humor becomes dull and drawn out and you just surrender... but not in a good way.

You have Kristen Wiig as the Peter Venkman type, the skeptic who eventualy believes in ghosts; you have Kate McKinnon as the Egon Spengler type who seems more into the scientific and logical side of things, Melissa McCarthy as the Ray Stantz type who just seems to be enthusiastic about everything, and Leslie Jones as the Winston Zeddemore of the group... Four talented women, but together, it seems they're trying to compete for who gets the most laughs from the audience... 

There's male eye-candy in the form of Chris "I played Thor" Hemsworth as Kevin, this movie's answer to Janine Melnitz, Kevin... a somewhat more immature answer to it, and basically a himbo. Which kinda put me off, kinda reminded me of his character in MIB International, but worse...

And while there are the occasional cameos in place, with Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and Sigourney Weaver... they are drowned out by the overly-extroverted attempts laid out by the four leading ladies who appear to be improvising in many cases within the film.

This competitiveness is somewhat indicative of them trying to work together, but in the end it comes across as them all effectively both trying to vie for individual attention and adulation... and it starts feeling like you're being swamped by one's nieces and nephews at Christmas time. The special effects were great considering it's been about three decades in between the original film and this, but it temporarily detracts from the true meat of the film, which isn't much. The plot is thin, there's ex-machina moments scattered throughout, and you are constantly reminded by all four leads that they're omnipresent within the film and not allowing the film to present itself and tell the story.

I walked away from this film feeling like I needed a shower to wash the feelings of just plain meh from having watched this film. It was a valiant attempt at trying to reboot the franchise, but Columbia Pictures clearly realized that this was only going to be a one-off and decided to focus their efforts on the original movie universe with Ghostbusters: Afterlife. As a result, I'm only going to give this film 2½ stars for a great idea, but a poor execution.

Alien (1979)

 

Running Time: 112 minutes

Media: DVD

 

A few months ago, a great actor, John Hurt died from cancer at the age of 77. This was one of his earlier movies, and it seemed to be a great idea for a tribute review in dedication of him. He will be forever remembered in his varied roles, including that of the titular Elephant Man, as Ollivander in the Harry Potter series, and the War Doctor in the Doctor Who franchise. He captured our hearts and imaginations and for that I am truly grateful that he graced our lives. Rest in peace, John.

So, without further ado, we move our focus to the actual film itself, Alien, released in 1979. Star Wars – A New Hope, which released some three years earlier served as the coat tails, for which this movie pretty much ride on, with Ridley Scott clinging on to George Lucas with his interpretation of what aliens could be.

Scott paints an eerie picture of isolation, desperation and horror in this film. But how well does it pay-off?

I will tackle the one at a time… Isolation, we have a deep space towing vessel, naturally, in deep space, making its way back to earth with a huge haul of some kind of magical space ore that must be worth a motza on the profits alone. Looking back on this some 38 years since its release, it seems quite cliche to say the least. To be honest, this movie did pretty much set the trend for many well-used film cliches over the next forty or so years. The sets alone, cold, dark, dimly lit and yet, correct me if in wrong here, some look like they had been padded with leather in places (?), still give a feeling of solitude. Hell, they even throw in a freaking cat into the mix to add the "We're all alone up here, let's give it the 'Crazy Cat Lady' feel" cliche. The cat served as a semi-plot device for part of the film, kinda like how Wilson the volleyball did in Cast Away, but less convoluted. Cat does jump-scare, where's the cat, must save cat from villain, end scene with cat...

I know the tagline of "In space no one can hear you scream" was meant to send chills down your spine; I mean, come on, this was meant to be for all intents and purposes, the first space horror, right? I kinda took this a little literally. Of course not, I thought, once you're in space, there isn't sufficient atmosphere to carry sound waves, not to mention, if you're in space, you'd freeze-dry before you could get the scream out. Maybe the tagline should have been written as "In the right kind of pressurized atmospheric environment, people could probably hear you scream"...?

But I digress... It's this setting that makes the audience feel isolated, kinda depressed and trapped, that it forces them to sit and live the plot as it unfolds. You feel the cabin fever and paranoia of Veronica Cartwright's character creep inside you as crew members get cut down, one by one. It's like watching Scream in outer space, but without the crazy motive. You already feel the inevitability of Tom Skerritt's character as soon as he enters the air ducts. You know he's gonna die in there. The lovely xenomorph does the lovely jump scare and you half expect it to say "Whassup!"

Personally, I thought this scene was somewhat comical in nature, a bit like the scene in The Exorcist where Reagan does the projectile vomit bit.

Desperation seems to drive paranoia and vice versa. Parker, played by Live or Let Die actor Yaphet Kotto, seems more focused on surviving for profits' sake. I have to admit, I was surprised that he and Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) lasted as long as they did. I'll be brutally honest, I wanted Lambert to die far sooner than she did in the film.

Now, let's focus on the horror aspect of Alien. I was three when this came out, I'm forty now, so thirty-seven years of experiences to prepare me for this film and what it had in store. I was gripped on the edge of my seat for about forty or so minutes while the Face Hugger latched onto Kane's face and played tonsil hockey, only to have it die later on, and then have the tiny alien burst out Kane's chest... It kinda went all anticlimactic after that. Jump scares and things latching onto faces and aliens bursting out of chests is all very well and good. But somehow, this teensy little alien hit xenomorph puberty and grew to umpteen feet in a few hours film time... What..!? How does that f[CENSORED]king work? Ridley, you have some explaining to do, bro.

Aside from these, there's the mouth on the tongue in a mouth thing... That's the stuff nightmares are made out of... How many levels does that go?

And to be honest, if you're into something that will make you feel both in awe and disgust, google "Xenomorph Pikachu".

But that aside, one thing most of us didn't expect seeing was an android, in this case, Ash, who basically blindly followed orders without a care. All crewmen were expendable. Fast forward to when Ripley, Lambert, Parker and Ash were the only crew members left, the 'android murder' scene was both scary and ridiculous at the same time. Parker managed to cut Ash's head off and was still flailing about like a headless chicken, but with what looked like semi-cooked linguine sticking out of his neck, and bleeding what looked like condensed milk... In fact, the android interrogation scene kinda looks like an orgy gone wrong. You just have to take my word for it and see the movie...

So let's cut to the chase. What did I think of Sigourney Weaver in the film? This initial performance as Ellen Ripley, I have to confess, was actually kinda wooden in places. Bearing in mind that this was her third film at that point in time, I kinda also blame Dan O'Bannon for writing her character that way. Ripley became less one-dimensional in later movies and so I fail to see why O'Bannon didn't consider any character development for Ripley within this film. I mean, she's meant to be the surviving cast member of this film, and we barely see her running away from the alien, let alone really facing up to it. More stay put, dodge, then blow it out the airlock... I don't know, it felt like it needed something to kick it up a notch. The face hugger scene was great, but once Tom Skerritt's character was on the chopping block, the film kinda followed suit. It almost feels like they were in a hurry to get to a happy-ish kind of ending and weren't afraid to make certain sacrifices to achieve that...

I'm willing to give Alien a 3½ star rating only because this was one of those watershed moments that dramatically changed the way we thought about horror and science fiction, even though it does lack in character development of the main protagonist and it rushes to the ending such that its lustre is lost on the audience. I hope to be reviewing the sequel Aliens soon, and I hope that I'll be giving it a higher rating.

The Queen

Running Time: 97 minutes

Media: TV Broadcast

I have a big crush on Helen Mirren, and she is by far one of the most attractive women of the silver screen. Seeing her in the role of Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II was by far an inspired move on the part of the casting director, about a close second to the casting of Robert Downey, Junior as Tony Stark in Iron Man.

The film The Queen focuses on the events surrounding the death of Princess Diana on the 31st of August, 1997. Despite efforts of the Royal Family to treat the matter as a private affair and not to be treated as an official Royal death; public outcry throughout the United Kingdom as well as the firm, but gentle hand of then Prime Minister, Tony Blair (played by Underworld star Michael Sheen) the focus is moved to match the general public's desire for an official expression of grief by the Royal family. The events that transpire to this conclusion are reflected by the general public's steady decline of the monarchy, and an increase of Blair's popularity since his election some few months prior to the death of Diana. Ironically, the situation was reversed in real life with the film's release (September 15, 2006), which coincided with a revival of favor in the eyes of the public in respect to the monarchy and a downward trend in popularity for Blair, who resigned some several months later (June 27, 2007).

This film is a difficult one to critique, because the separation between truth and reality is somewhat blurred in historical/political films such as this. One could only really gather that this film is an aggregated average of events that transpired, based on witness testimony, the various television reports and the formal inquiry findings relating to Diana's death. Mirren plays the role of Elizabeth beautifully, portraying her in a manner that reflects the stern-faced monarch a number of people have associated her to be, how a queen should be portrayed, supposedly devoid of emotion. The ending scene is quite hilarious in the nature of her reaction to Blair's attempts at "small talk" (to put it mildly). Mirren plays the role with strength, courage and humility; I mean, let's face it, this is a huuuuuuge role to play... I am incredibly enamored with how convincing she plays the titular character. Mirren's popularity increased with the release of this film, which garnered general critical and popular acclaim for her; so much that Mirren was invited to dinner at Buckingham Palace after the film's release. However, due to filming commitments in Hollywood, Mirren couldn't attend the event. I just hope HRH didn't take the decline of the invitation to personally!

Blair played by Michael Sheen is effective; a little comical and his head is a little on the inverted egg shape, which differs somewhat to Blair himself, but indeed effective. His portrayal, no doubt, received some praise due to his reprisal of the role in movies The Deal (the previous film in which he played Blair) and The Special Relationship (a later release). Should I consider that reason enough to boost my rating of this film? Perhaps, but there are other factors.

James Cromwell, the only other A-grade actor to appear in this film plays the role of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is a well received panacea amongst the other events and characters that transpire throughout the film. He almost serves as comedy relief due to the use (or perhaps abuse) of the character and the stereotype set upon him as a prejudiced, opinionated royal who has nothing but insults to hurl at other characters and the general public. it's actually quite amusing seeing him refer to the crowds gathering at the memorials as Zulus, it's enough to make you cringe, but also enough to make you chuckle, in realizing that this is exactly what Prince Philip is renowned for. Cromwell looks and acts very similar to how I pictured the Royal back then, and not as the frail but still quite opinionated Prince Philip of today.

From here the cast kinda falls apart with semi lookalikes and events that may have just been added to the film as filler to pad it out to over ninety minutes. The chap playing Prince Charles, Alex Jennings... Where the hell did they conceive that this was a good idea? The poor casting of this character made Charles look like a crude caricature of himself at the very best! I'm sure that if they had looked a little harder they could have found three or four other actors who could very well have filled the role better than Jennings.

The Land Rover stuck in the river and the glancing of the deer scene, some five or so minutes that I will never get back again, regardless of the fact that she "was a mechanic during the War." I have no idea if this ever really happened... and yes, it was a beautiful stag. So was Bambi's dad, I hear... It seems incredibly irrelevant. The casting of Sylvia Syms as the Queen Mother was imaginative at best, almost making her seem like they had taken Hattie Jacques from the Carry On films and popped her in the film. Yeah... Nah.

So where does this leave us? It leaves us with a film that despite the brilliant casting of the title role, is screaming for attention and not really getting the full attention it deserves. It's like a 1972 Corvette Stingray, but with faded blue paint, high mileage and balding tyres... The potential is there, and we know what it is meant to be, but all we see is that it's trying to be something it no longer is... or at least something it could be with a little more work on it, including a tune-up and oil change. Peter Morgan has written the film wonderfully, but I'm left wondering whether I can take the overall film seriously, or the serious parts of the film overall. If I were to knowingly shave the non-essential parts of the film off, it could potentially be reduced down to about 17 minutes. However, despite this, this film has reaped the various awards set upon it, including 29 awarded to Mirren alone; so I cannot demote it completely. Therefore, I award this film 3½ stars, and still maintain that Helen Mirren is still one of the most attractive 68 year-olds in my humble opinion.

Justice League of America (1997)

Running Time: 82 minutes
Media: TV Movie

I remember seeing this when this first came out... I was young, I was naive, and I had seen The Flash TV series some seven years prior, thinking "This will be great!"

How cruelly wrong I was... I have dubbed this movie with a new label "Cringe-worthy", because it is just so... so... so ugh! What can I say... this is like Friends meets Modern Family plus superpowers... It just doesn't gel too well. I have to confess, it comes off almost more camp than the original Batman TV series, and even that show was more classy by comparison...

The story revolves around Tori Olafsdotter who eventually develops powers of ice manipulation, joins a somewhat ragtag team of superheroes that make the members of the Misfits of Science team seem top of the game, and defeats the arch-villain in this storyline, known as the Weatherman, who, surprise surprise, is actually a meteorologist gone mad with power...

The only real actors in this dismal failure of a TV series pilot were Miguel Ferrer, David Krumholtz, David Ogden Stiers and John Kassir... And even then, the parts they played have more cheese in them than a pound of Jarlsberg. The other actors in this film are relative unknowns who have appeared in various TV programs here and there... It's these other actors who seem like the unknown variables of a complex algebraic equation, hard to figure out, but it's no real loss if the overall answer is not important enough.

...And... it isn't... They throw in a lot of gimmicks, like the rather poor special effects, the superfluous dialogue, the poignant background music which is meant to appeal to the audience... It doesn't. I'd like to say that it's eighty-two minutes of my life that I am never getting back... but at least by having watched it, I can set myself up for bigger and better movies to watch, and thereby use this movie as a yardstick for comparison... This movie may even rival Sharknado or Sharktopus as a sheer contender for worst movie I have ever seen... until I get to see Plan 9 From Outer Space.

There are definite holes in the plot and the backgrounds of some of these superheroes deviates widely from the norm. Even Kenny Johnston, who plays the role of Barry Allen (aka the Flash) in this film, who is by far my all-time favorite superhero from DC Comics, plays a dead-beat unemployed lackadaisical version of the comic book incarnation I have grown to know and hold as a part of me; and that in itself, speaking as a comic book fan, and a fan of the Flash... is almost tantamount to sacrilege.

Miguel Ferrer, who plays the part of the "Weatherman", which seems to be a very poor attempt on the part of director Félix Enríquez Alcalá to envisage the Weather Wizard in human form seems almost (pardon the pun) comical in nature due to the sheer seriousness of his role. Not to mention that the alter ego of the Weatherman is not "Mark Mardon" (or Marco Mardon if you're reading The New 52 series, which would have been more effective, given the Latino derivation of Ferrer's name), but "Dr. Eno"... Ironically, his hammy portrayal as a criminal mastermind made me want to reach for the namesake antacid to counter the effects of how ill I was feeling watching this movie.

David Ogden Stiers, you may remember him as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III from the TV series M*A*S*H and I have to admit, the role doesn't suit him at all... mainly because his role is that of the Martian Manhunter J'onn J'onzz... J'onn is meant to be tall and muscular... Stiers, does not fit into either category... if anything, he was somewhat rotund... but that blue cape on his costume kinda hid that fairly well...

John Kassir, if you are a hardcore geek like I am, you will know is the voice of the Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt TV series... He plays the role of Ray Palmer, a more timid, less bold version of his DC name-sake as The Atom. As a fan of his work, I am a little biased on this performance, but common sense kinda won in the end. I have to admit, he does well, but it is a little corny, but not so much as to render the role he plays as over the top... His romantic interest with Tori is a bit of an attempt to win the hearts of the audience, but it doesn't pull it off altogether... also the cliché of having face paint over the eyes, and yet when removing the mask there's none at all is a bit weird... and makes no sense...

David Krumholtz, who has appeared in other TV series, namely Numb3rs; plays B.B. DaCosta's (aka Fire) love interest in the film. I'll put this simply, it's cute and endearing, but the fact that he knows so much about her kinda feels like border-line stalking... it's actually kinda creepy... That's just the role Krumholtz plays... He's a great actor, but it just didn't cut it.

I have to confess, the TV movie was clever but I don't think it would have made it as a TV series if it had taken off, maybe a season of 13 episodes at most... and then it would have not survived going into a second season... But it was an honest mistake in well-intended efforts to get something off the ground... Maybe the fact that the animated series of Justice League, Justice League Unlimited as well as Young Justice may provide a foundation to how the upcoming live-action film should be. Meantime, Justice League of America receives 2½ stars... And a huge sigh of relief that it didn't surpass anything more than the pilot episode.

Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

Duration: 116 minutes.

Media: Blu-Ray.

I only just noticed that this movie came out in 2007, and my immediate reaction was "S[CENSORED]t, has it really been that long!?" I never thought that this movie has been around for a good six years, so I guess the real question begs, what's taken me so damn long to see this movie?

To be honest, time and opportunity to watch this without my wife, as she is prone to getting grossed out with movies such as this. Various incarnations of Sweeney Todd have inundated us from days of old, and they all have one thing in common... blood, blood and more blood... oh, and pies... I have to admit, since watching this movie I have been very hesitant to tuck into the Aussie fave, the honorable meat pie, lest I find a severed toe or finger in it.

This movie is no exception, what with the darkness that only a, what I like to call a "Deppton" collaboration, can provide. The Tim Burton/Johnny Depp dynamic seems to pop up every so often with the occasional addition of Helena Bonham Carter thrown into the mix. Everytime Deppton make a film, there seems to be a bit of a random effect as to how well it goes...

I will quote Rotten Tomatoes' overall film ratings for the benefit of this example.

• Edward Scissorhands (1990) - The first Deppton collaboration, a somewhat dark movie, 7.6/10;
• Ed Wood (1994) - considerably dark and quite hilarious, 8/10;
• Sleepy Hollow (1999) - and hey, what do you know, it's rather dark as well, 6.3/10;
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) - a dark version of the original 1971 film (are you seeing a general pattern here?), 7.2/10. By this time, Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton had been together for about four years and this was the trio's first group collaboration, a "Deppton Carter" film;
• Corpse Bride (2005) - Let's face it, they're all dark... Another "Deppton Carter" collaboration that scored 7.2/10;
• Sweeney Todd (2007), our titular movie in question, yet another "Deppton Carter" film, rated 7.7/10; 
• Alice in Wonderland (2010), another "Deppton Carter", but this one rated 5.7/10; and finally
• Dark Shadows (2012), which surprisingly was another "Deppton Carter", fared worse at 5.3/10;

All Burton's collaborations with Johnny Depp have been fairly considerable but have waned past Sweeney Todd, and I'm not sure why to be honest... I think it was more that there were considerable risks with projects that have had... a previous past that were in themselves, an acquired taste. Sleepy Hollow, inspired by the legend of the Headless Horseman, was a short story, and the film was a fairly broad extrapolation from that. Alice in Wonderland was meant to be a sequel to the story, inspired by the original story and Through the Looking Glass, which is also an acquired taste - I mean, even my wife hates the story, much to my surprise. Dark Shadows was inspired from the original 1960's and 1990's TV series of the same name, also acquired tastes. One guesses that the reason these three weren't as strong is because hard core fans of these movies went there with high expectations and were bitterly disappointed and that the critics themselves placed similar expectations on what to expect in these films and marked them down accordingly.

Bearing this in mind, what is it about Sweeney Todd that pushes the ratings to being one of the highest rating films out of the eight or so that Tim Burton has worked on with Johnny Depp?

Well, for starters there is the Johnny Depp factor, he's a handsome chap... though have you seen him lately? He's kinda started looking like Mickey Rourke... But nevertheless, still a handsome chap...

It's a musical, this gets some points. Musicals always seem to have a way of getting interest from the general populous. Look at High School Musical, Hairspray and the most recent incarnation of Les Miserables. They all raked in big... although it kinda helps when you have leading men in these movies like Zac Efron and... Zac Efron (I only just realized he was in Hairspray too... and Hugh Jackman...

But I think the most captivating and attractive factor in this film, would have to be the blood and gore. It's something that seems to draw us in... Like it or hate it, the horror factor (despite it being in overly-abundant bucketfuls, sometimes quite literally) seems to have this raw appeal that makes you want to squirm, and yet you can't look away. In at least a dozen moments of the film, I found myself cringing in almost sheer disgust and horror, and yet, it was so... over-the-top it was hilarious. I have a tendency to treat horror films of late as though there was a comedic element within them. A guy gets his head taken clean off by a giant blade, I laugh my goddamn ass off... I guess it's more because of the overall nature of the deaths that seems rather incredulous that it deserves such a response... it's so far fetched and over-the-top and yet so... predictable but you want to see it again and again, laughing so hard that you almost wet yourself. And that's how it is with Sweeney Toidd.

So why, with this film? To give you an understanding, you need a quick synopsis of how this film plays out...

Johnny Depp plays Benjamin Barker, a barber who was wrongfully imprisoned by Judge Turpin, so that he could marry Barker's wife and raise his daughter as his own. This is the ultimate spoiled brat concept... I have no toys, so I must take someone else's... Barker returns to London, and boy is he pissed off! He wants to off the judge that had him banished, so he returns as "Sweeney Todd" a barber with a razor sharp wit, as well as a razor to match... He loses the chance to off the judge by pure chance and as a result collaborates with Mrs Lovett, played by Helena Bonham Carter, who owns the pie shop downstairs, so that he can start offing people, because in his eyes they're all deserving of it... But how to get rid of the bodies? Enter Mrs Lovett, who has found a wonderful new source of protein that makes Soylent Green look like a Snickers bar in comparison... She starts baking human flesh into her meat pies... (Nummy)

Long story short, there are a lot of deaths and twists toward the end of the film that I never foresaw... and surprisingly, it kinda appealed to me, which kinda makes me sound quite twisted and sick, but to be perfectly honest, it's a work of fiction, so who really cares? The musical numbers are peppered nicely throughout the film, and that sorta gives you a more deeper insight into the natures of the characters of Todd, Lovett, Turpin and Pirelli... The timeline is set to what is believed to be Victorian England... though it is never really implied anywhere throughout the film, and to be perfectly honest, that doesn't bother me at all...

The color scheme which is predominantly in its black-and-whites, and sepias as well as the occasional splash of red reminds me of throwbacks to say, Frank Miller's 300 or Sin City, which adopted those sorts of visual techniques to get the message across to the audience - and that is that this movie is about one thing, and one thing only. Revenge, pure and simple. Depp pushes the boundaries as the revenge-driven title character and delivers that role with such conviction that the audience feels the pain he lives with and has for the past fifteen years. You start rooting for him with every progressive throat that he slits and you pretty much find yourself cheering towards the end of the film. It's a very addictive plot device, all that blood... 

Depp as Sweeney Todd looks slightly gaunt and ambivalent of the surroundings as he focuses on his tasks at hand, namely, dispatching the lives of those, who just in general, piss off Sweeney Todd. He seems to have acquired a singing voice which is great... Not amazing, but still great... But for some reason, he still sounds a lot like Captain Jack Sparrow, less complicated hair and he was... focused more than anything, whereas Sparrow was more laisser faire. The gaunt and pale face make up on Depp is great, though I am having trouble understanding the huge gash of white hair that seems like a throwback to Anna Paquin's character of Rogue in the X-Men movie franchise. nevertheless, it suits him... All these dark movies that Deppton do together seem to work in his favor for the most of it... I could see him playing the part of an aging rock star. His singing voice isn't too bad either.

Helena Bonham Carter... I know she's Tim Burton's partner and all, and she does add a bit more humor, but she always tends to look like she could do with a few Big Mac McValue meals. As Mrs Lovett, her intentions are endearing but misplaced, looking to have a wonderful life with Sweeney Todd despite her baking people into pastries. I have to confess though, after seeing her in the Harry Potter movies as Bellatrix Lestrange, every time now that I see her in a film that's "dark" she seems like she's playing the role of a corpse. Given that she played the title role in Corpse Bride, it seems rather befitting, but the stereotype with Bonham Carter and roles that make her look like she's post-mortem seems to have stuck. This isn't Bonham Carter's fault in any way... I blame very good make-up in this case... and scriptwriting, and hey, if you're good at what you can do, by all means go for it... Nevertheless, she plays the part of Lovett well, rather comically in places which suits the role of Lovett as it did in the stage productions.

I also have to give kudos to Alan Rickman who plays the part of Judge Turpin rather well, a bit of a send up of the alluded corruption of Victorian justice back then. Note that Bonham Carter, Rickman and Timothy Spall (who stars as Beadle Bamford) all played roles in the Harry Potter movies, they can't seem to get enough of one another, can they? Rickman always seems to be stereotyped into roles as a bad guy time and time again, in a way that's a shame, but at the same time, that's also great. Turpin is a bit on the sick side, supposedly taking a leaf from Woody Allen's book and trying to marry his ward. If you think that's the most disgusting thing in Sweeney Todd, however, throat-cutting and baking people into pies aside, then maybe you may need to seek professional help.

Sacha Baron Cohen however, who plays Adolfo Pirelli, is a somewhat of a surprise... he does the same thing as he does with Monsieur Thenadier in Les Miserables, steal the stage... I personally feel he loves the musical roles inasmuch if not more than the non-musical roles, as he gets to be a little more serious, and that seems quite admirable. So it's a shame that he dropped out of the Freddie Mercury bio-pic project in July 2013, over "creative differences" between him and the surviving members of Queen, because I think he would have made the role his own, in the same way that Hugh Jackman has done with Wolverine.

Saying that, this movie is quite enjoyable, given the blood and gore that the movie brings. It made me cringe, rather receptively, and I strangely hope to see it again in the near future. Sweeney Todd get two thumbs up (which are not found in any pies quite luckily) and receives 4½ stars... Now I feel hungry for a Four 'N' Twenty pie for some strange reason...