The Golden Compass and Sweeney Todd

How's that for a creative post title? I'll give you two guesses what this post is about; you'll need them both to cover it all. Also, this is a good news/bad news post.

The bad news is that despite how extra cool the promos were for The Golden Compass, that movie really sucks. Whatever else I say, the real reason I wanted to see it was because the girl riding the polar bear in the previews just made me want to ride one. The story looked okay, even though I knew going into it that it was the beginning of an anti-Christian trilogy that ends with the children essentially killing God. Kind of a response to Narnia. I was hoping to take that with the same grain of salt that allowed me to accept Gaia in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (which was surprisingly good). You always have to accept some premise in fiction, and I was willing to detach this world from our world.

First off, there was a PSA at the beginning of the DVD about polar bears being threatened by global warming and that "you are their only armor." Way to go, let's brainwash the children watching this movie that the cute polar bears, whose numbers have quintupled in the past 30 years, will die because their parents drive a Suburban. Shucks and other comments! Still, I kept an open mind.

The story could have been good, but since it was so poorly told it merely seemed derived from The Lord of the Rings and Narnia alternately. Keep in mind, I'm reviewing only the movie, maybe the book is much better. I'll read it eventually. The dialogue most of the time seemed written for a comic book. Every character was a stereotype, with no attempt to give them more depth. Every major character but one had an English accent, even though several of them had cool Scandinavian names and should have had accents to match. The one who didn't was a Texas man, and he was so stereotype western that I could not take him seriously even once. Every time a new character enters the story, they introduce themselves to the hero, ask what her quest is, recite their backstory from start to finish, then join her quest without any resistance because that's what their character is supposed to do. Each subplot is introduced and resolved in short order with few surprises. Major plot points are barely attended to, no doubt in a poor attempt at subtlety. Other than the bear, the animated animals look completely fake, and the big battle scene at the end looks more like a riot at a soccer game than an epic fight for the fate of multiple universes. The scenes look hastily pasted together and as if half a dozen different art teams worked on different bits and never communicated with each other. Also, there's a Star Wars type personal story twist in there at some point.

I can go on but that's enough. Here are the parts I liked: Dakota Blue Richards did a very good job in her first ever movie role as Lyra Belacqua, the hero of the story. The compass looks cool, as does Iorek Byrnison the bear. Iorek's fight with the king of the bears is pretty cool, too. The witches are very cool, and their special effects were done properly and subtly. I liked the idea of the demons, which in this movie are animal companions to every human, which contain their soul (though they should have had a mental link rather than speaking aloud). Also, there was one very effective bit after Iorek gives his obligatory backstory, extremely well delivered by Dakota, and the quote can be applied to my disappointment in this movie:

"Iorek Byrnison, you are the first Ice Bear I ever met. I was ever so excited, and scared, but now I'm just disappointed. I heard that bears lived to hunt, and to fight! Why are you wasting your time here, drinking whiskey?"

I was excited to see this movie, but it was a disappointing waste of time.

Good thing I rented another one....

I'm not a fan of musicals or horror, but I am a fan of cannibals, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, and I've been a major fan of Helena Bonham Carter ever since Fight Club. Sweeney Todd is a Burton film starring Depp and Carter about baking people into pies, so what's not to love? Of course, Stephen Sondheim deserves the real credit for this one, Burton just did an amazing job bringing it to the screen. The movie is rated R for one reason only: buckets and buckets of blood. Rivers of blood, in fact. Draining into the sewer. If blood makes you squeamish, don't see this movie.

I had no idea Johnny Depp was such a good singer! Carter is good, too, but not as good; in fact while I enjoyed her voice, I found her hard to understand. The real surprise, though, was Ed Sanders, a fifteen-year-old kid who's never been in anything before but who for me stole the show from Depp and Carter as he played the role of a server in the pie shop. This kid has an incredible voice, and will go very far in film and theater. As he plays his all-important role in the events at the end of the movie, he was so convincing, and had such intense rage and hatred on his face that I was more afraid of him at that moment than of Sweeney himself the whole film. I listened to the original Broadway soundtrack after seeing this movie, and the singers in the movie overall were much better by far than the original singers.

The story is cool, and presented as a horrific horror movie and a hilarious comedy at the same time. It's about a man so consumed by revenge that by the time he gets it he's lost everything through his actions. The end plays out like a Shakespearean tragedy where very few survive. The art is very surreal, and it's nice to see Tim Burton back on his game after that awful Willy Wonka garbage. Did I mention pies made of people and buckets of blood?

Since the story is told in music, let's talk about the music, with lots of lyrics quotes. I absolutely love the creepy orchestrations as well, but I can't quote those. Right at the beginning we're introduced to Sweeney's very optimistic opinion of London:

"There's a hole in the world, like a great black pit

And the vermin of the world inhabit it

And its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit

And it goes by the name of London"

Later, as his first chance at real revenge is snatched from him, his cheery attitude gains an extra lift:

"There's a hole in the world, like a great black pit

And it's filled with people who are filled with shit

And the vermin of the world inhabit it

But not for long....

They all deserve to die!"

"We all deserve to die

Tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why.

Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief

For the rest of us death will be a relief

We all deserve to die."

So after Sweeney kills Sacha Baron Cohen (yes, Borat is his first victim), Mrs. Lovett (Carter) comes up with a great way to dispose of the body and give a boost to her business at the same time: cook them into her pies! This inspires a song where they discuss what type of person would taste best:

"Have a little Priest!"

"Is it really good?"

"Sir, it's too good, at least!

Then again, they don't commit sins of the flesh,

So it's pretty fresh."

"Awful lot of fat."

"Only where it sat."

"Haven't you got poet, or something like that?"

"No, y'see, the trouble with poet is

How do you know it's deceased?

Try the Priest!"

I wasn't impressed by the looks or voice of Jayne Wisener, who played Todd's kidnapped daughter, and her love interest and Todd's friend is sure an ugly fellow. But for icing on the cake, Alan Rickman is the villain (of course), and his assistant is none other than Timothy Spall, who was Peter Pettigrew from Harry Potter. He's just as greasy and rodent-like in this movie.

This is now my favorite musical after The Nightmare Before Christmas (ironically another Burton film), and I highly recommend it. Just don't watch it during dinner, like Kate and I did. Also, it'll be an interesting experience next time I get my hair cut....

That's not beef....

Also, take a look at my friend's Sweeny Todd fan art. I'm jealous of the sketching ability. There're also great sketches of Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean characters as well.