Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Reviews

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Debbie Lynn Elias
Behind The Lens
November 15, 2019
Tim Burton and company have indeed reinvented a wondrous work with an extraordinary vibrancy and vivacity that is to die for. So make a date to meet up on Fleet Street where morality and madness meet.
Full Review
Matthew Lucas
The Dispatch (Lexington, NC)
June 6, 2019
A brilliant mix of beauty and horror, shot in near-monochromatic tones by cinematographer Dariusz Wolski and deftly blended and juxtaposed by Burton.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/4
Namrata Joshi
Outlook
January 29, 2019
It keeps getting bloodier by the scene, yet remains curiously engaging.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
Kaleem Aftab
The List
November 3, 2018
Sondheim has hitherto been ill-served by film adaptations of his stage work, but Burton has done a formidable job of trimming and re-working the original play. A visual and aural treat.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5
Deborah Ross
The Spectator
August 23, 2018
Without any warmth and humor at all, how are you meant to care? I'm not saying you always have to care about someone in a movie - not at all - but here the story is so ludicrous that, unless you can, why bother?
Full Review
David Keyes
Cinemaphile.org
April 28, 2016
Revenge stories don't get a pass just because they are about revenge. If there is a genuine meaning to the legend of Benjamin Barker and what he must go through, poor Tim Burton is no closer to understanding it than his predecessors were.
Full Review | Original Score: 2/4
Richard von Busack
MetroActive
January 2, 2015
This dark operatic movie looks like Burton meant every bit of it, that he shared this story's longing for death and night and blood.
Full Review | Original Score: 5/5
Mark Asch
Stop Smiling
September 30, 2014
Sweeney Todd is maybe a bit too Grand for its own good. It's all danse, no macabre.
Full Review
Top Critic
Joshua Rothkopf
Time Out
November 17, 2011
This is grand-scale studio-work at its most beguiling.
Original Score: 3/5
Ben Rawson-Jones
Digital Spy
July 14, 2011
This magnificently realized musical from Stephen Sondheim contains the right blend of emotional pathos, stunning visuals and accessible songs.
Full Review | Original Score: 5/5
Jamie Graham
Total Film
May 27, 2011
It's gross but will it gross? Burton and Depp's cannibal musical is an especially acquired taste - Oliver! reimagined by Eli Roth. Brave, brutal... ballads?
Full Review | Original Score: 3/5
Felix Vasquez Jr.
Cinema Crazed
October 5, 2010
Looks incredible, like a moving painting, but it's absolutely mediocre...
Full Review
Eileen Jones
The eXile
July 7, 2010
It's rare that entertainment with such a lofty pedigree also offers generous portions of things people actually like: revenge, violence and viscera, a protagonist we can root for, occasional humor, nice tunes. Is that so much to ask?
Full Review
Ian Buckwalter
DCist
June 12, 2010
Sweeney Todd may just be that rare musical with broad appeal to audiences who might normally say they don't care for the genre.
Full Review | Original Score: 7/10
Fernando F. Croce
CinePassion
August 27, 2009
Elevates a rollicking gorefest into a dark work of art
Full Review
Jordan Hoffman
UGO
August 14, 2009
This is a remarkable piece of work for people who like their genres all mashed together in a meat grinder.
Original Score: A-
Tony Macklin
Fayetteville Free Weekly
February 2, 2009
Sweeney Todd is a throat-slasher of a motion picture. It creates a new genre -- the slasher musical. Adapted from the Tony-winning Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim, it's the tuneful tale of cutthroat's revenge.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5
Top Critic
Peter Rainer
Christian Science Monitor
October 18, 2008
A considerable achievement even if, on balance, it's more of a Tim Burton phantasmagoria than a Sondheim fantasia.
Full Review | Original Score: B
Top Critic
Gail Pennington
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
October 18, 2008
As unsettling as it is riveting. Even Sondheim aficionados will see the story with fresh eyes, unless those eyes are covered.
Full Review | Original Score: A-
Scott Nash
Three Movie Buffs
October 18, 2008
[Burton's] vision of a dark and smoggy nineteenth century London, with muted colors, is perfect for the music and the story.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/4
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