Left: The vengeful Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) and his willing accomplice Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter). Right: Johnny Depp stars in the movie 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'. - Contributed Photos

LOS ANGELES (AP):

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is the quintessential Tim Burton movie it springs from somebody else's celebrated mind.

Everything about Stephen Sondheim's revered musical, which provided the inspiration for the film, seems tailor-made for the director's sensibilities. Truly, what other filmmaker could tell the story of a vengeful barber (Johnny Depp) who slits his customers' throats and the lovesick baker (Helena Bonham Carter) who grinds up the dead bodies for her meat pies?

Wicked humour

It's strangely beautiful and beautifully strange, with horrific subject matter that produces plenty of wicked humour and characters who initially seem ghoulish but ultimately reveal themselves as sympathetic and deeply sad.

Burton fell in love with Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's 1979 work when he saw it 20 years ago in London, and it shows.

Sweeney, formerly known as Benjamin Barker, goes on his killing spree after spending 15 years in an Australian prison on false charges. The villainous Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman, always a subtly delicious bad guy) sent Sweeney away to steal his bride and baby girl. The wife has long since poisoned herself and young Johanna (Jayne Wisener), now Turpin's ward, is kept like a fragile bird in a cage in his elegant home.

Once he dispatches his first victim - the Italian huckster Pirelli, played by a scene-stealing Sacha Baron Cohen in tight-blue pants that leave nothing to the imagination - Sweeney doesn't know what to do with him and stuffs him in a trunk. But the ever-practical Mrs. Lovett, who famously makes 'the worst pies in London', sees the body and instantly gets an idea of how to improve her product. (Her cheery line about how "everybody shaves, so there should be plenty of flavours" is a twisted classic.)

As the carnage piles up and their relationship evolves, it turns unexpectedly sweet. Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett fall into an easy rhythm, but he's too focused on his goal - slicing Turpin's throat - to realise she's in love with him and dreams of building a simple life with him and the orphaned Toby (Edward Sanders), who helps out around the shop. Bonham Carter is no Angela Lansbury, who originated the role on Broadway, or Patti LuPone, who took it over in a 2005 revival, but she absolutely has the right look for the part and a touching tinge of melancholy.

Depp, meanwhile, has been immersing himself in challenging roles like Sweeney Todd his whole life, and is just as snug a fit for the material as Burton himself. With his shock of black-and-white hair and the obsessed look in his darkened eyes, Depp's Todd could be a long-lost relative of Edward Scissorhands.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, a DreamWorks and Warner Bros. Pictures release, is rated R for graphic bloody violence. Running time: 117 minutes. Three stars out of four.