It's a gusher

The first time I saw “Sweeney Todd,” Tim Burton’s revamping of Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 Broadway play, I wasn’t sure what to think. These aren’t trained singers, and several passages in the film come out of nowhere, then linger awkwardly. The small screen treats “Sweeney” more kindly, for me anyway, because it whittles down Burton’s vision from boisterous Grand Guignol spectacle to measured genre experimentation.

Burton and Johnny Depp’s nearly two-decade history together has brought us two outright masterworks (“Ed Wood,” “Edward Scissorhands”), two eye-catching misfires (“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “The Corpse Bride”) and one excellent but misunderstood horror exercise (“Sleepy Hollow”). “Sweeney Todd” ranks near the top half of Burton/Depp collaborations for two reasons: Dante Ferretti’s Oscar-winning production design and Johnny Depp’s complete commitment to the project.

Unlike many characters in musicals, Depp rises above overloud caricature and makes us feel for his demon barber, even as he slits throats left and right. Alan Rickman and Sacha Baron Cohen are standouts on the supporting front, but Helena Bonham Carter’s screeching performance falls mostly flat.

The two-disc edition of “Sweeney Todd” has enough features to satisfy fans of Burton’s movie and Sondheim’s original musical alike. Disc One offers a look at the professional dynamic between Burton and his oft-used actors, Depp and Bonham Carter, while Disc Two covers everything from the film’s art direction to the composition of Sondheim’s original songs.

Perhaps the most interesting feature, though, is “Sweeney Todd Is Alive: The Real History of the Demon Barber,” in which the 160-year history of the character (first introduced in an 1846 collection of short stories) is explored. Anyone with more than a passing interest in the painstaking, and so rarely successful, process of translating Broadway to the big screen should spring for the double-disc over the single.