Twisted Goth teens of the world may scoff tumultuously at what I have to say, but Tim Burton is one the most unoriginal directors posing as a brilliant mind in Hollywood.

His latest cinematic endeavour is “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” and after viewing this musical of a homicidal beard trimmer, I believe a pattern is forming.

I claim that Tim Burton is incapable of making a film of quality that is different from a basic premise established in “Edward Scissorhands.”

“Edward Scissorhands,” made in 1990, was the story of an incomplete mechanical boy, played by Johnny Depp. He feels rejected in the suburbs and eventually is pushed over the edge by conformity and enacts revenge while pining after an oddly blonde Winona Ryder.

Preceding “Edward Scissorhands” in 1989 was “Batman.” In that film a slightly oddball billionaire dresses up as a bat and fights crime to avenge the murder of his parents while seeking the credibility of a blonde reporter played by Kim Basinger.

The process was repeated for “Batman Returns” in 1992, but Michelle Pfeiffer was added for flavor.

The next build-up blockbuster to note is 1999’s “Sleepy Hollow.” Johnny Depp again stars in this story about an oddball detective who feels ostracized in a town of superstition. Eventually revenge is enacted against the town’s guilty-doers, all while Depp pines after a blonde Christina Ricci.

Then came “Big Fish” in 2003, which almost avoided the trap, but still held Burton’s prevalent themes. Ewan McGregor plays a small-town man who feels out of place.

He leaves home to follow big dreams, falls in love with a beautiful blonde college coed and defies the polite manners of non-imaginative suburbanites.

In 2005’s bizarre “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” Burton again used Johnny Depp, this time as the titular candy tycoon who seeks approval of small children and enacts revenge on naughty boys and girls with ironic sweets.
Eventually he chooses a blonde little boy to run his factory.

Finally, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”, released at the end of 2007, completes the cycle by turning Johnny Depp into a homicidal barber (or an adult Edward Scissorhands) who seeks revenge against an evil judge who tortured Sweeney’s former blonde wife.

With this evidence of broken-record directing, I challenge the apathetic audience member to look beyond Burton-types and stop funding this master of repetition.

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