Sweeney Todd! ARGH!

[justira]

So I went and saw Sweeney Todd, because I felt like doing something entertaining, relatively brainless, and not involving my mouth. Since it had Johnny Depp in it, was directed by Tim Burton, and purportedly contained straight razors and a lot of blood I was pretty sure I would enjoy it.

Which I did. I admit that now that Depp has bagged himself an iconic role it's difficult to separate him from Jack Sparrow. Of course Depp plays a lot of dark British men, but now the sarcasm and the British accent are tied to Sparrow.

And so is the smirk.

Just, fyi. Depp's evil smirk is like, orgasmically hot. I'm warning you >.>

Okay, so Depp was flashing around straight razors and there was a lot of blood. This should have been a slam dunk for me (JOHNNY DEPP. STRAIGHT RAZORS. BLOOD -- oh wait, sorry, my kinks are showing, let me tuck that back in there, *whistles*).

BUT ALAS.

THE BLOOD. IT WAS HORRID.

Not like blood is supposed to be horrid. It was SO BADLY DONE. I'm not objecting to the colour -- Burton likes to play with colour palettes and that's fine; he did the same thing in Sleepy Hollow and the whole "blue palettes make blood stand out" dig worked there, too. (In fact I was pretty specifically looking for similarities/differences between Sweeney Todd and Sleepy Hollow -- and From Hell.)

No, it's not the colour. It's the... consistency? Texture? Opacity? I mean! God, it was so bad, the blood was OPAQUE and too thick half the time and the other time it was runny and looked like bad red dye.

Man, this movie could have been BEAUTIFUL with some nice, well-done blood. Light playing on blood can look fantastic, and this movie had the perfect setup for it -- so much nice, heavy lights and darks; it would have been gorgeous. I don't know whose brilliant decision it was to do the blood the way it was done here, but I want to smack them upside the head. Sure it made the blood stand out -- because it was distractingly ridiculous. I understand that it was this kind of fake-gore, shockingly THERE approach but it just didn't work for me at ALL. If they could have toned down the opacity just a little, made it thinner in some places and thicker in others, let the wonderful moody lighting play on it properly -- I would have been a happy camper.

I mean, seriously. Johnny Depp. Straight razors. Blood.


Also, this movie made me wish I understood music -- I noticed that the score was very complicated, but that's pretty much all I got out of it D=

I will definitely do a full-fledged review of the movie because I have a lot to say about the character development and the storytelling and the visuals and of course about how goddamn hot Depp is, especially with that fantastic hair and raggy clothes. But for now I just wanted to get that off my chest -- the blood sucked. I'll be sulking.

PS: Two posts in one day! MY JOURNAL. IT LIVES. IT RISES LIKE ZOMBIE JESUS.

Comments

[shuraiya.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Sweeney Todd yet (I don't know if I will be able to, because of the gore/cannibalism), but I just wanted to comment and say I agree that Johnny Depp is kind of stuck with the Jack Sparrow persona FOREVER now. XD;

[justira.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's pretty hilarious! Also kind of sad, really. Depp has played so many fantastic characters, and while Jack Sparrow is definitely awesome I wish he wouldn't constantly be getting in the way now whenever you see Depp onscreen.

As for Sweeney Todd! Honestly I don't have a high gore tolerance. Cannibalism doesn't squick me in theory -- it's just, uh, something I would prefer not to partake in or think about it happening in my vicinity too hard. So fiction with cannibalism = okay; actual cannibalism = kind of not okay at all. The gore, meanwhile! Well. Uh. Like I said, my gore tolerance is not high. I know I just spent an entire post basically talking about blood and being really obvious about my kinks, but really, that's all I got -- blood. I'm not into guts or wounds or anything along those lines at all (actually kind of squicky!), and I withstood the gore in the movie okay.

If you can take all the throat-slashing you could maybe see it with a friend who can help you look away/look back to miss the gratuitously gory parts -- they don't really add anything but shock to the movie -- unlike the throat slitting, which are pretty central. Luckily, like I said, all the very bloody (as opposed to gory) parts are gratuitously FAKE.

... let me try to rephrase. If you could handle Kill Bill (which I don't know/remember if you've seen), you can handle this, especially if you intentionally miss the gratuitous gore. It's the same kind of over-the-top un-realism for the bloody parts -- makes it easier to stomach, if that makes sense. The actual gory parts are, um. ... more realistic >.>

OKAY sorry that was long >.>

[shuraiya.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'll rent it or something. @___@

[justira.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I went on for a bit there ._.

Apparently I am in BLAH BLAH BLAH mode today. Long story short: it's worth seeing if you can navigate around your squicks.

Apologies!

[shuraiya.livejournal.com]

Oh no, it's okay! XD I don't mind you being rambly! :D

[justira.livejournal.com]

WELL. If you did probably you would have abandoned my journal a while ago XD

[shuraiya.livejournal.com]

That's right! 8D

[aciel.livejournal.com]

Ooh, agreed. I was thinking, "Finally, the true evil side of Jack Sparrow emerges." It may not be entirely that the role is iconic as ira says, but that he liked the role so much that it became a part of him. I'm not sure which. Certainly he strayed from it in "Wonka," no?

As for the blood, the stuff they used is probably raspberry-flavored wax. It's quite common in theatre, because it can be drank (!?). It does look very fake when used in that amount, as you say; but I think that was the effect Burton was going for. Don't know why. I'm no symbologist, unlike Dan Brown.

[shuraiya.livejournal.com]

It's probably for aesthetics, really. With the blue-white and black, it really only makes sense to have a bright ass red.

(Nice DaVinci Code reference <3)

[justira.livejournal.com]

Oh no, I loved the red! I don't mind Burton playing around with palettes -- he does that in EVERY MOVIE EVAR, and the blue tones/bright red blood thing worked quite well in Sleepy Hollow, like I said. I am just sorely disappointed that I didn't get some kind of kink-fulfillment trifecta XD

[justira.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's good to know. I used to follow movie special effects obsessively back in the 90's but I've kind of, uh... fallen off since then. Thanks for letting me know. When I think about it, it DOES look exactly like wax, and I seem to recall even thinking that at some point.

And yeah, it was almost surely intentional -- Burton's pretty particular about his movies, so I can't imagine something like this slipping under his radar. I just really really disagree with the creative choice -- I'm sure it was meant as some combination of in-your-face, comically fake, startlingly contrasting and out of place, etc. etc. but it just really did not work for me. The colour, fine, I thought that was quite pretty. Everything else, no not really. The inconsistency bothered me too, since like I said, sometimes it looked like the wax stuff and sometimes it looked thin as water. You seriously gotta pick one: either people are like wine-filled sacs or like strawberry Gushers; you can't have it both ways.

... either way, though, the blood looked great on Sweeney's white shirt >.>

[justira.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, I forgot -- I meant to mention the Jack Sparrow thing again. I agree that it's not just how iconic the role was -- it's DEFINITELY a role that had a great impact on Depp himself; I seem to recall reading something pretty close to what you said, that Sparrow is kind of part of him now. But Depp really does play a lot of dark British (or at least British-accented) men with various degrees of sarcasm, and it's a little distracting to see flashes of "Jack Sparrow" in characters who distinctly are not him. The quotes are because... well, it's not really Sparrow, it's just Depp, but it's superficially like Sparrow -- does that make sense? I don't actually associate Depp all that much with Sparrow, not really much more than I do with any of his other roles... but I don't know, what my problem is, really. Maybe I worry that people will think Depp's some kind of one-act man, or typecast or something. I know he tends to play... similar-ish kind of characters, kind of loner types a lot of the time, but I maintain that he's a brilliant actor with great diversity.

Oh, whatever. Chalk it up to me being an elitist I LIKED JOHNNY BEFORE HE WAS POPULAR fan or something XD

Obviously it's still too early in the morning for me to justify myself properly =P

(PS: Have you seen Sweeney Todd?)

[aciel.livejournal.com]

I has seen Sweeney. I liked it, generally, though blood makes me pass out--even clearly fake blood, in certain contexts. I actually made it through the movie alright, all things considered.

Have you seen Benny and Joon? It's old school Depp and it's wonderful. Max and I watched it on a date (she'd seen it already).

Agree completely--Depp is a great actor, great diversity. I put him up there with Anthony Hopkins, Ed Norton, and Ian McKellen.