To this day I am amazed at movies that have everything going for it and still manage to disappoint. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is the perfect example of a movie that shouldn’t be a letdown, that shouldn’t be mundane, slow, pointless. I mean, this film has a ton of great facets. Tim Burton. Johnny Depp. Helena Bonham Carter. Alan Rickman. There’s singing. There’s brooding. There’s bloodshed. And there are pies… delicious meat-filled pies. I was expecting one of the five best films of the year. And that’s on top of this film being recognized by critics as one of Burton’s best movies in years, and it just won the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy, over Hairspray and Juno. What do I say to that? Blasphemy!

Sweeney Todd marks Burton’s fifth disappointment in a row, following Planet of the Apes (which shall forever be his worst and only truly bad film), Big Fish (his best film this decade but still not great), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (a sad experience for major fans of the Gene Wilder original), and the Corpse Bride (a pale imitation of Nightmare Before Christmas). Burton seems to be becoming the new Rob Reiner, a fantastic director who made a handful of classics in the beginning of his career and is lately not delivering the highest of quality. I mean, I really hate to say anything negative about Burton. I love the guy. All the way back to his short film Frankenweenie, I’ve admired his work. Pee Wee’s Big Adventure? Classic. Beetlejuice? One of my favorites. Batman? Flawed but entertaining. Edward Scissorhands? Beautiful and haunting, my favorite Burton film. Batman Returns? Underrated. Ed Wood? Genius. Mars Attacks? Not that great, but entertaining. And Sleepy Hollow? A good film (and still the last good one he’s made).

Boy, I feel like I’m James Lipton, going over Burton’s filmography like with a fine-toothed comb. I can see Mr. Burton sitting across from me, trying to get me to stop with all the praise of his work between 1980 - 2000. “You are too nice, Mr. Rowe. I’m flattered.” But then, the claws come out, and Inside the Actor’s Studio suddenly turns into Dr. Phil. “What happened Tim?” I say. “Did the new century frighten you? Are ya bored?” But the proof is here. I love his work. He’s extremely talented. I wish I could say that I loved Sweeney Todd, that it was finally, after nearly a decade, a return to form for the director. But alas, I have to go with my heart, and my heart says, letdown. I never fully got involved with this film, and I have a few ideas why.

There are two elements in the beginning ten minutes or so that immediately made it difficult to get immersed in this world. First, it starts with singing right away, but then the characters keep singing. And then there’s more singing. We’re not given a chance to really get to know anyone in the beginning because there’s no dialogue early on. It’d be like if in Hairspray after Tracy’s big opening musical number Good Morning Baltimore, we transitioned to, well, more singing. We need time to breathe in the beginning of a musical. Sweeney Todd doesn’t offer that opportunity. Second, unlike in the underrated and similarly themed 2002 film Count of Monte Cristo, we’re given next-to-no chance to meet the Benjamin Barker character, Sweeney’s original and happier self. The lack of definement of Barker lowers the stakes in a sense and makes us not care enough about Sweeney’s vengeful feelings. Are we supposed to hate Alan Rickman’s slimy character of Judge Turpin? We know he’s a sleazeball, but for all we know, Sweeney is just as bad as he is.

For a musical, there’s not a single memorable song in the lot. Here’s the next big strike for this film, and, I guess, for the show the film was based on. There aren’t many real musical numbers to be found; instead, there’s just a lot of sing-talk (is that a phrase?), with the characters just talking about their feelings in a way that, I guess, has elements of singing. The best song of all consists of Sweeney wandering around town, sharing his plans with all the folk around him. But we already saw this part. In the trailer. The early song about pies, sung by Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), is deranged and, may I see, a little bit delcious, but for the most part, the songs don’t really stick with you. I didn’t even like the indie musical Once all that much, but I still rushed home to buy the soundtrack. That’s definitely not the case with Sweeney Todd.

It’s not to say that this film is all bad. The performances and cinematography are all top-notch. I’m happy to have seen it once in a theatre, because the movie does look great, with that ultra Burton feel to it. Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are two of my favorite actors, and they do the best job they can with the material given them, with Carter delivering by far her best performance for director and husband Burton yet. At the same time, I feel like Depp and Carter can sleep walk in these kind of characters. There’s very little in both their performances that offer any surprises. We know what to expect from them in a movie like this. Alan Rickman doesn’t make much of an impression in the villain role, but it’s always great to see him in a film (I’m already desperate to see how he plays his scenes in the finale of Half Blood Prince). The actor who may come off best in the whole thing is Sacha Baron Cohen, who is practically unrecognizable as a cocky magician who wants to blackmail Sweeney. His handful of scenes are the most fun in the movie and definitely the part not to miss.

The movie has a great visual style and some entertaining scenes, especially a montage of various clueless old guys getting their throats slit in a barber’s chair and dumped down into the basement. But it all gets repetitive after awhile, with most of the material taking place in one building, and the finale is an anti-climax, with nothing really being resolved. It’s one death after another, all warranted, I guess, but not all that interesting. I’m all for downer endings, but this one feels like it’s lacking something. By the time the credits roll, I felt like the journey had been a road to a brick wall.

Tim Burton still has more great films in him. I’m sure of that. I don’t know if his style started to get the better of him over the last few years, or if these films truly are just bad films, unfortunate as it may be. This film has not lived up to the hype, and the glowing reviews and award recognitions are a little beyond ridiculous. I would rather watch something like Sleepy Hollow, hell, even Mars Attacks, over this movie any day. I’ve been happy to see the return of the musical this year in movies, with Hairspray, Across the Universe, Romance & Cigarettes, and Once all coming out in the last six months. But Hairspray’s the only one that fully succeeded. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street unfortunately, and I really mean unfortunately, is just another letdown of the genre.