Sweeney Todd Is Bloody Good

Sweeney Todd, about a wronged barber-turned-murderer, is so good that watching it will make you "feel sorry for the poor saps in the next theater at the multiplex," writes Kyle Smith of the New York Post. Directed by Tim Burton and starring a "stupendous" Johnny Depp, the big-screen adaptation of the 1979 Broadway musical is "scary, monstrously funny, and melodically thrilling," writes Peter Travers of Rolling Stone.

Helena Bonham Carter, meanwhile, plays Depp's amorous accomplice, who lends him a hand by grinding up his victims and forming them into meat pies. Though "thin-voiced," writes Peter Marks of the Washington Post, the actress manages to make her character "just as poignant as the Broadway character Angela Lansbury created 28 years ago." (More Johnny Depp stories.)