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If this film is a musical it lacks any of the tuneful qualities which make great movie musicals (like Annie or Meet me in Saint Louis or whatever) The music is appropriately dark, melodramatic, laborious and repellant. So it doesn't work as a musical. If it is a comedy then it is too heavy, too heavy, too heavy and too wooden. Burton and Depp were brilliant in Ed Wood but here they are tiresome. So it doesn't work as a comedy. Is it a plausible narrative? I don't think so. But then whoever said movies have to be plausible since after all this is a musical comedy, eh? Is there some moral message which redeems it? Hardly. It is bloody and the recreation of Victorian London while not so sooty and dark as it really was is charming but not charming enough to pay $9.50 to look at. I came away thinking a culture that spends millions to make such a spectacle deserves the fate of the society in I am Legend which is the film I should have seen. Finally my wife wouldn't speak to me all the way home in the car as if it was my fault the film sucked.
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It's an opera by musical theatre's greatest composer, Stephen Sondheim. NOWHERE does it imply a lighthearted musical comedy-- and on Broadway the humour was because of irony and allegory. Ts are brilliant, the music is incredibly complicated and intelligent and melodious in a different way. The moral message: "Revenge will lead you nowhere but to hell."
You need to see more stage opera and learn the difference between theatre and film. Burton's piece is musical comedy. It is not serious opera. Burton's film is a cartoon of Sondheim's piece, missing most of the music. So there!
Well I don't know who you are and you certainly don't know who I am, but I HAVE seen many operas, and many musicals. The piece is an example of 19th Century Grand Guignol theatre, which employed humour to tell a part of the tale. The film may be Burton's, but he is simply adapting the humour extant in Sondheim's original lyrics and music. And by the way, nobody dares to tell anyone that Opera Buffa isn't opera, even though the plots of most of Mozart's and others operas are ridiculous even when compared to some of the mindless thoughtless plots of 1930s to 1950s Broadway. Sondheim created an opera of intense meaning and depth, and yes a lot of it is cut from this film-- for valid reasons, even though I will never like the film as much as the stage version. I DO know full well the difference between theatre and film, and I am very opposed to filming musical theatre and opera, but since it has been done, I went to it open-minded about the film genre. I am opposed to the fact that Burton chose to cut all of the choral pieces of the score (which, by the way is entirely sung through in its 2 hour stage version) However, I knew that it was a movie and not theatre and changes must be made. For the record, I have seen Madama Butterfly, Peter Grimes, Sweeney Todd (TWICE on stage-- once in Calgary Opera, once in Regina Light Lyric), Marriage of Figaro, The Barber of Seville, The Magic Flute, Die Fliedermuas; I have sung and acted West Side Story, Kiss Me Kate, Seussical the Musical, The Pirates of Penzance, Die Fliedermaus, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni... I could go on, but you get my point. And Sondheim approved the cuts to the score, ceding that Burton's film is not the stage vehicle-- it is an entirely different approach. So there!
Okay Gavin, please accept my apologies for the snide comments about your credentials. You have wonderful credentials; better than mine. I am a musician also. Still I found the movie (we are talking about the movie, eh) really tedious and dark. I think Depp did the best he could but I suspect Burton has a penchant for the dark side (Cronenberg also) that just dips below my capacity to suspend disbelief. I also find revenge movies, however, venerable in human narrative, repellant. You and I have no real quarrel but notice folks over a certain age don't resonate with this film like their younger peers. My wife is now talking to me again. So there.
You make me smile-- you see, I get into fun little quarrels on Talkinbroadway.com as well... either way, I took no real offence. Just had some fun arguing (I teach grade nine and ten, and sometimes, their arguing skills leave me feeling unsatisfied) So there.
Merry Christmas Gavin and many more. Don't fall off the stage. Jim C.