Positive reviews for Sweeney Todd (reprinted from a comment in someone else's LJ)

[fpb]

I see. They like it because it makes mass murder and cannibalism entertaining. Well, as a historian, I have had enough of that in my subject, and I must say that I do not see the fun in it. Hollywood, however, does, ever since The Silence of the Lambs and Fried Green Tomatoes. But then, an industry that relies on the regular destruction of its own personnel may not have any trouble with cannibalism. I wonder - has anyone ever checked the ingredients in Hollywood restaurants and caterers?

Comments

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Oh, good grief. Go watch it, if you're that interested in maligning it. The music is wonderful, and it's not a film (or musical, since it was written for the stage) glorifying murder and cannibalism, it's a morality play (as much good horror is): the moral is that when you focus your life around vengeance, you only harm yourself and the ones you love the most.

Sweeney Todd

[elskuligr.livejournal.com]

I would defend Tim Burton's movie as well, although it probably doesn't need my prose to impress.
Of course, there is much violence, but interestingly none that is naturalistic in its representation: look at the colour of the blood! that as such is of course not enough to prove that the movie is not an apology of violence, but it is at least a good clue as to what the movie is trying to do.
I see Sweeney Todd as a macabre fairy tale, much more concerned with story telling and the violence and horror lurking in the darker side of our imagination than with real life violence between human beings.
Are all the murders necessary? of course: what kind of a monster Blue Beard would be if he had only killed one wife? part of the attraction of the tale comes from the shocking image of all the corpses of the previous brides all in the same room, and the gory detail of the blood that won't disappear from the little key. This image is what constitute Blue Beard as a proper monster, the kind of monster that needs to be killed for the fairy tale world to be cleansed and its "cosmic" balance reestablished.
Similarly, the image of Sweeney Todd killing dozens, of the bodies falling through the trapdoor and of his shiny razorblades is necessary to make him a proper nightmare creature, the embodiment of the ugliness of revenge, sadness, violence, hatred...etc
And fittingly, he and his companion get punished with the instruments of their crimes.
The reason why the fairy tale is of a somewhat macabre sort though, is that the world is not cleansed and no equilibrium is regained after the monsters have been killed: even for the apparently innocent heroine Johanna, there are only nightmares, no happy dreams.
Still, I don't think considering this movie an apology of violence is a fair assesment, on the contrary.
It is more like an incomplete exorcism.
Some of the monsters lurking in our nightmares may have been killed, but there is no promise that it will be enough for anybody to live happily ever after, because the darkness is everywhere.

[super-pan.livejournal.com]

Gosh, I don't remember any mass murder or cannibalism in Fried Green Tomatoes. But then, I don't think I ever really saw the movie anyway (I know I've seen bits and pieces, but I can't remember if I ever watched the whole thing)

I can't comment on the merit of Sweeney Todd, but I did decide not to see it, because I just can't handle the violence and gore.