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With little defining exposition, barber Benjamin Barker is wrongfully convicted of a crime by Judge Turpin so that the judge could take his wife and child Johanna for himself. Years later, Barker is released from prison and arrives in London with full intention of reclaiming his family and getting his revenge with his new identity, Sweeney Todd. As he finds out through local pie maker Mrs. Lovett though, his wife committed suicide and Turpin has taken Johanna as his ward with an intention to marry. After setting up a new cover business as a barber, Todd whips out his razors and proceeds to take his revenge on London, one throat at a time while Mrs. Lovett uses the bodies as ingredients to make her pies, and thus her business, better.

It’s easy to see why Stephen Sondheim’s musical failed the first time out: it’s violent, discordant, Johanna’s story with Anthony is a dull dead end, and the songs are mostly forgettable and, at times, bloated with exposition. Those significant problems aside, it strikes a deep, darkly fun chord because it’s just so different from every other production. Tim Burton is one of the few directors that could wrap it up and give it that extra bit of style and visual panache that it needs. Although he doesn’t help the music much, as expected, Burton does give the film punch with an incomparable vision; Sweeney Todd was one of the best looking films of 2007.

Despite the fact that no one on the cast could sing aside before the production, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and the rest of the cast all do well enough by Sondheim’s forgettable tunes. Depp has a tendency to growl instead of belting out the notes, but it’s not intolerable and Carter handles her machine gun lyrics with aplomb.

The two-disc special edition is a shining example of what DVDs should be. “Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd” is a half hour featurette that looks at the relationship between the three and how the director and his two predictable casting decisions came together to make the film. Unfortunately, it repeats information that you’ll see in the standard making of featurette, but it’s a small frustration. There are three detailed and insightful historical featurettes focusing on the Todd time period, the storied history of the character, and the history of macabre theatre. Finally, there is video of the launch press conference and a fluff interview between Burton and Depp that are both forgettable but nice-to-haves.

If there was ever a musical written and destined for the hands of Tim Burton, Sweeney Todd is it. Sondheim’s play is a dark stew with bits of every landmark film that Burton has worked on up to this point: the color scheme of Sleepy Hollow, the dark humor of Willy Wonka and Edward Scissorhands, and so on. Naturally if this is the sum of those parts, then of course only one actor could fill the role of Todd: Depp. With that recipe, you would expect a tasty meat pie, but instead Burton serves up something more like a crusty pastry because we’ve seen the black and the obsession with stripes before. It’s time for Tim Burton to sharpen his razor.

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