Burton explores the razor’s edge

I’m not sure why they insist on making movie musicals. Especially musicals that are adapted from the Broadway stage. But I really don’t understand why Tim Burton wanted to adapt “Sweeney Todd.”

Even in a genre that is essentially ridiculous, “Sweeney Todd” sits on the edge. It’s a bloody, vengeance-fueled exercise in dramatic irony that is dark and dreary – except, of course, for Stephen Sondheim’s music and the occasional comic interlude.

In Burton’s hands, the comedy does come through. In fact, what kept me going throughout the film was Helena Bonham Carter – subbing for Angela Lansbury in the role of Mrs. Lovett – delivering the occasional bon mot.

Ultimately, though, the fact that no one could really sing, the story is so familiar (it resembles a cross between the basic plotlines of “Les Miserables” and “Phantom of the Opera”) and the free-flowing gore proves to be just too much.

“Sweeney Todd” the movie might have been directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis. With a tune or two thrown in just for, uh, fun.