If Broadway box office receipts are any indication, scads of people would happily spend an evening watching a morose barber cut his customers' throats while his enterprising landlady serves up pies made from the trimmings of the trade.

My own overactive gag reflex caused me to decline all past invitations to see any version of "Sweeney Todd" with about as much regret as I've passed on offers of sauteed sweetbreads, which is to say, none at all. But if anyone could interest me in the "Demon Barber of Fleet Street," it would be Tim Burton and his muse Johnny Depp, who jointly can make the macabre and grotesque ("Ed Wood") seem like the best thing on the menu.

Their version of Stephen Sondheim's melodramatic "Sweeney Todd" (the story dates back to the 19th century) is far less wild and captivating than I hoped. It's certainly beautifully staged, not opened up to the natural world but wider in scope than the usual theatrical footprint.

We meet Todd (Depp) as he's returning to Fleet Street after a lengthy absence to resume residence above the bake house belonging to Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter). In his youth, he was a gentle barber named Benjamin Barker until nefarious Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) took a shine to his pretty wife and had Benjamin tossed in jail so he could use and discard her. Their baby Johanna, now almost grown up and played by Jayne Wisener, is living with Turpin as his ward.

In most dramatic scenarios, you'd expect a father to spring into

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action to save his only child from the inevitable ravishing by Turpin. But this is a guy who croons most lovingly to his knives and his memories (his melancholy is more artistically appealing than emotionally engaging), so Johanna's best chance lies with a dopey sailor (Jamie Campbell Bower, who bears a distracting resemblance to Claire Danes). Theirs is a slender romance, conducted entirely in warbles and chirps, and it's hard to care what happens to them.

As with many translations of musicals from stage to screen, everyone in this production has a face far prettier than their singing voice. Bonham Carter (engaged to Burton and pregnant with their second child) and Depp look fantastic together, like a pair of gorgeously ghostly siblings. But his singing is merely adequate, and her voice is wispy, her delivery labored; it's never good when you're waiting out the leading lady's big numbers. The original Broadway cast CD is adored and treasured, but in Burton's version, there isn't a single tune you'd walk out humming.

The whole experience is underwhelming, except for the violence, which is entirely overwhelming. Around the time Todd slashes his 13th throat -- Sacha Baron Cohen fans beware; his Signor Pirelli is a delightful oil slick, but he's a short-timer -- I began to feel validated in my anti-sweetbread policy. My gut on "Sweeney Todd"' was right; it's not for me. And while I'm hardly an expert on the Demon Barber, something tells me that devotees of the original Broadway production are going to be disappointed as well.

Reach Mary Pols at mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com or 925-945-4741. Read her blog at http://www.ibabuzz.com/shortcuts.

'SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET'

C+

Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen

Director: Tim Burton

Rated: R for graphic bloody violence

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 2 hours