First a few warnings: This movie is not for anyone who doesn't like musicals. There is a lot of singing in it. This movie is also very violent, and it's not about heroes and villains. It's very twisted and gruesome...and at some points, it's pretty hilarious.

What this movie is, though, is a study of identity. Actually, it's just an adaptation of Sondheim's Broadway musical which is about the same thing. It's got murder, revenge, things like that. But it's really about who really is who as a person, and takes it to its deepest, darkest depths.

Tim Burton crafts the movie well, sparing no cost with costumes and set design. It's a wonderfully bleak London he creates, and at times it looks all-too-familiar in that we've seen this London before in many, many movies. But Burton doesn't use it as his motif. Instead, he chooses the characters that were given to him, and allows the actors to breathe so well that their pipes are ripe for the singin'. And pipes they are. I never knew Helena Bonham-Carter had such range, but some of the songs that were composed are so complex, it's a miracle that they were even memorized.

This movie has some funny moments but is mostly a dark tale and satire of the human condition, and full of bombastic tirades and buckets of sprayed blood.

The audience I saw this with probably wasn't ready for this. One woman walked out halfway through it, the rest grumbled about how violent it was and how the songs weren't "memorable."

So, I go back to my warnings. The songs ARE memorable but more for their meaning than their melody. If you're up for it, it's a pretty damn good ride--and though it may not give you answers to life, the universe, and everything, it's a good show.

out of