comment #1

Jay T. says ...

I don't blame some people for being pissed -- they completely hid the fact that it was a musical. Not everyone lives and breathes movies...

comment #2

WKeane says ...

They made the right choice. Terrible vocals, shoddy CGI, underlit scenes and cartoon characters and gore aren't worth the money.

comment #3

BurmaShave says ...

Somebody call Chertoff, because any twat walking into SWEENEY TODD not knowing it's a musical has clearly spent the last 5 months in an Al Qaeda training camp.

comment #4

D.Z. says ...

Well, The Grove was kind of responsible for misleading people, since they had an ad for the film and an ad for POTC3 next to each other when you went in that direction.

WKeane: "They made the right choice. Terrible vocals,"

You don't seem to get irony, do you?

"shoddy CGI,"

But Transformers was wonderful, right?

"underlit scenes"

It's Gothic London. What the fuck did you expect?

"and cartoon characters and gore aren't worth the money."

Yeah, I prefer to be treated like a child at heart instead of an adult by those wonderful man-children at Pixar.

comment #5

WKeane says ...

DZ: In a musical the performers should be able to sing. Transformers was garbage. Good CGI can be found in Zodiac, because more often than not it doesn't look like CGI. It stood out too much in Todd, and looked rushed. Many scenes were actually underlit. They pushed it too far. The sorrow behind the story was lost when Burton decided to make it look and feel like a cartoon, complete with fright wigs and splatter film blood geysers. I realize it's a dark comedy, but I had no connection to what I was watching due to these stylistic choices.

comment #6

D.Z. says ...

WKeane: "In a musical the performers should be able to sing."

It's a parody of musicals, though.

"It stood out too much in Todd, and looked rushed."

I'm assuming that was the point, actually. To emphasize the absurdity of the scenery.

"Many scenes were actually underlit."

That's because it takes place in a ghetto, damnit. Next you'll be bitching about 4 Months for having the same "problem".

"The sorrow behind the story was lost when Burton decided to make it look and feel like a cartoon, complete with fright wigs and splatter film blood geysers."

Um, my music professor noted that Sondheim's sardonic approach to the material was what made it so appealing.

comment #7

MickTravis says ...

Overheard in my theater?

Stuffy Eurasian Business Nerd: "I demand an immediate refund!"

Stunned Runny Nose Boy: "Why are they talking like that? Why are they talking like that?"

Pillbox Hat Lady: "Of all the nerve!"

Mouth-Breathing Car Hop: "Derrrrr!"

comment #8

le corbeau says ...

On the one hand, I'm sorry, if you haven't heard of Sweeney Todd as a stage musical by now, you're really unplugged from anything higher in the culture than wrestling.

On the other hand, nothing surprises me since the woman in her 50s or 60s at the end of Capote who saw the "Truman Capote never completed another book" title stuff at the end and said, "So that was a true story?"

comment #9

Rich S. says ...

Good riddance to them. If the musical aspects of the film put them off, then God knows how they would have responded to the gore.

comment #10

Josh Massey says ...

So did anybody go to Robert Englund's Phantom of the Opera and walk out when their wasn't music?

comment #11

Josh Massey says ...

...there. Dammit.

comment #12

Mark B says ...

"Why are they talking like that? Why are they talking like that?"

Okay...I have to ask. Did someone REALLY say that? To not know beforehand that SWEENEY TODD is a musical is pretty shocking. To not know what a musical IS when you're watching it is absolutely mind-boggling.

comment #13

berkguru says ...

Don't you people realize that 80-85% of the country is fucking stupid

comment #14

MrClever says ...

I watched it last night with two friends. The theatre was fairly full. Thick, but not dense. Only one walk-out I noticed, a man and a woman. They were sitting directly in the row in front of us and left during the song in the pie shop where Todd and Mrs. Lovett are singing about the different types of people and what kind of meat they'd provide (the best of the songs, I though). As the couple left, the man extended his hand and flipped off the screen. I told the person sitting next to me that I'd love to hear what these guys were complaining about on the way home.

comment #15

Jeffrey Easter says ...

I am a professional opera singer and the only singing that I had a problem with was Johanna's. Everyone else did ok. Sondheim music is tough to sing. My biggest problem was that a lot of Beadle's singing was cut and he had some of the greatest, nastiest songs in the show. I saw it in a sold out theater at the AMC Empire in NYC and it was filled with many different people and not a one walked out or complained during the movie.
Brilliant job I thought and will go see it again.

comment #16

D.Z. says ...

Mark: "To not know beforehand that SWEENEY TODD is a musical is pretty shocking."

Well, they don't know how to turn off their annoying cellphones, either, so...

MrClever: "As the couple left, the man extended his hand and flipped off the screen."

Then they rented Hostel 2, thought it was so much better than Todd, and lived happily ever after.

comment #17

ZacharyTF says ...

"Don't you people realize that 80-85% of the country is fucking stupid"

You're being optimistic. It's more like 95-99% of the country that is fucking stupid.