An interesting mixture of good and bad, IMO. I thought the principles were just great, considering that of them, only C Z-J actually comes from a song ‘n’ dance background. The lawyer role required someone who could really turn on the smarm, so who better than Richard Gere? The direction was first-rate, and several of the set-pieces were stunning.
OTOH, the overt nastiness and cynicism of the story seemed, just, well, cheap and easy. And having seen and heard Cabaret more than once, the story and score seemed a bit overly familiar to me.
All in all, good for what it was, but maybe it stood out so much simply because musicals with a bit of intelligence are such a rarity these days, rather than because of its inherent crunchy goodness.
I liked the choreography and I can easily see myself watching some of the numbers (Tango, Mama, Jazz, and Razzle Dazzle) over and over and over again. So I’ll probably get the DVD. But I didn’t like the cuts they made to “Roxie Hart” (even though it was obviously necessary as RZ could neither sing nor dance them).
Plus, I still don’t like RZ or RG, which hurt my movie experience.
Not painful, some great moments… but I’ll see it again to see how I feel right after, instead of several months later.
I thought the movie was thoroughly entertaining, and very fun. RZ didn’t look too squinty eyed to me during the movie, but man she was squinty at the Academy Awards! It looked like she was trying to look at the sun.
And Richard Gere’s singing and dancing just struck me as really odd.
Movie of the year? Hmm…good movie, but not movie-of-the-year quality.
Yup, I forgot to mention John C. Reilly. I thought he was great in it…Although I liked him in The Hours a lot more.
Thanks for your opionions everyone. I think next time I’m going to listen to that little voice inside my head. That would be the “You know you’re going to hate this movie.” voice.
I saw it last Saturday for the first time. I couldn’t walk out since I was with a group, some of whom actually liked it, but if I could have…
I will say that some of the individual performances were pretty good and probably deserving of the Oscars and nominations for the cast, but I still hated the movie. The story line was simplistic to the extreme. I’m pretty sure Horton Hears a Who had more plot twists. I hated Zellewegger’s character and wished her pathetic husband would have beat her to death with a tap shoe. The music got old fast. There was some clever stuff here and there, but overall, it gave me headache.
I can’t understand why people think it’s “original”. This was not unlike any other musical where the plot runs into points where a song and dance supplant dialog and action. Moulin Rouge was original in the way modern culture was referenced and the cleverness of the script and lyrics was very amusing. Not to mention the stunning visuals.
