The many faces of Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp has been making movies for quite some time now. And ever since Johnny came onto the film scene in 1984 as Glen Lanta in A Nightmare on Elm Street, Depp has been synonymous with movies that are a little out there. Of course, this tendency toward strange films drew Depp and Tim Burton (and don’t forget Danny Elfman, a personal favorite!) together. Together they have made some amazing films, and I trust their newest effort will not disappoint.

Two of my favorite Depp films have been Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But which one is really my favorite?

In Pirates, Depp plays everyone’s favorite drunken pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow. There aren’t many who can deny Captain Jack’s irresistible drunken charm, and who can deny the utter coolness of 19th century guyliner? And who can’t sympathize with Captain Jack’s classic lament: “Why is the rum always gone?”

In Fear and Loathing Johnny Depp plays Raoul Duke, the drug fiend journalist from Hunter S. Thompson’s novel of the same name. Along with the help of seemingly infinite amounts of booze and drugs, the strangely charismatic Duke and his equally drug fiendish attorney seek out the “American Dream.” Even though Depp’s character spends the entire film wasted out of his mind, it’s hard not to love him. And with the scene with him swatting at invisible bats in the middle of the desert, and lines like “This here’s bat country,” the battle between Captain Jack and Raoul Duke is a tough one indeed.

In the end, I think I have to give the win to Captain Jack. Even though the last two films in the series didn’t exactly live up to the first, Captain Jack was strong throughout.

As good as those two roles were (not to mention many other great ones) I have high hopes for Johnny playing Sweeney Todd in the new Tim Burton film. I decided to visit the official Sweeney Todd movie site, just to get some insight into the upcoming film, and was certainly not disappointed.

It looks to me like Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is going to be a classic Depp/Burton film. Dark, freaky, scary, and impossible to take one’s eyes off of. I will definitely be checking this one out on opening day. If you want more info, you can also visit Sweeney Todd on MySpace.