Blood is Compulsory

They're hardly divisible, sir—well, I can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and I can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and I can do you all three concurrent or consecutive, but I can't do you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory—they're all blood, you see.

Yes, the Ballad of Sweeney Todd is missing, and Helena Bonham Carter isn't really a great singer, and occasionally the Lady Snowblood style afterial sprays are a bit much.

I'm here to tell you that it doesn't really matter. This is likely the best film version of Sweeney Todd we could have hoped for. It's incredibly intact: the excess, the striking pessimism, the comedy, it's all there.

I love films that openly laugh at our hopes for a happy ending for anyone. The way it mocks Ms. Lovett's delusional dreams of the sea, and the way the young lovers are given the most annoying songs add another layer of depth to the story. It's almost as if the film portrays Sweeney as the sanest character of all, a revenge machine who knows with absolute certainty what lies in wait for him after he achieves his goal.

This is not to say it's another Donny Downer movie. It's incredibly entertaining and funny. Ms. Lovett's song about the sea is maybe the biggest single laugh I've had at the movies all year [including Superbad, I know!] And Sacha Baron Cohen's Pirelli the barber is hilarious.

And then there's the red stuff. The blood. Geysers of it spray out of necks at an alarming rate. But I think it's the best example of Burton's craft coming to the forefront. His greatest skill as a director and a visualist is his knack for combining horror and comedy. I can think of no better example of this brilliant synthesis than the way he deals with the killings in the film. The first death is brutal. a savage beating, a blood soaked floor, and a sliced throat long after we think the job is done. But after that the film slides into a comic montage where the blood sprays ridiculously and the bodies crash down the chute with a comical crunch. Everyone relaxes and smiles. We can't help it. But we're being set up for the big finish. The deaths before the climactic scene with the judge are so quick they are almost an afterthought. But then the brutality returns with a vengeance [see what I did there?] and the film ends on a sudden, unsettling note that is very powerful.

Oh, and kudos to the first person who figures out the opening quote without googling.

Also Merry Christmas everybody.