Yet I was very pleasantly surprised when I finally did watch it when it came out on video. It is off the steam of its success that I even bothered to see Chicago in the theaters, to which I am now sorely disappointed that I wasted $8 and two hours of my time. Simply put, Chicago completely lacks the proper formula to even be considered a musical by my definition. A musical should have smooth transitions into and out of musical numbers, as I have already stated Chicago painfully lacks. It should seem a surreal world, where it appears perfectly natural for everyone to spontaneously bust into well choreographed song and dance for five minutes and then return to their daily lives as though this was their normal routine. Also, musicals are not solely about the big song and dance numbers. There should be some solos or duets interspersed as well, perhaps some with no dancing at all. I understand why they largely neglected to do this with Chicago however, seeing the general lack of real vocal talent in the cast. Lastly, the musical numbers in a musical should be part of the plot, not a break from it. Perhaps Chicago took too much of an influence from MTV, with the majority of it's musical numbers being nothing more than some flashy nonsense and half naked women. If it weren't for the clever camera work focusing solely on the bare parts of the female dancers through the majority of the film, the audience might have been more aware of the many, many other things the movie totally lacks. I was extremely disappointed with the casting in particular. Catherine Zeta-Jones, the only actor in the film who showed any real singing talent, was shafted with only a couple of songs to herself. Meanwhile the absolutely talentless Renee Zellweger, who ironically enough portrays a young woman who can't break into the entertainment industry because she's a crappy singer and dancer, unfortunately gets the majority of the spotlight. While I didn't think much of Richard Gere's performance either, he did at least have the two most entertaining numbers in the film, the only moments of true inspiration in the whole movie, with the marionette news reporters and the courtroom tap dance scenes. There was also a total lack of diversity in the movie's musical themes. All the songs were of nearly identical style and while musically quite good (minus Zellweger's voice), the film definitely needed a broader range of styles. All in all, this is more what I expected from Hollywood for a modern musical. A piece of crap. It's unfortunate to think that movies like Moulin Rouge will likely become the exception, not the rule, when looking at modern musicals moving forward. It simply takes too much time, money, and effort to make them, and the standard requiring all actors to be able to sing and dance no longer exists, making even finding the talent for such a film far more difficult. I should've just followed my first instinct and saw Bulletproof Monk instead...
4.21.2003
REVIEW - MOVIE - "Chicago", aka "Our movie sucks! Quick, take your clothes off."
As a general rule, movies that the critics hold in high regard are the very films I absolutely despise, and the films I really love are the same movies the critics loathe. There is, however, that rare gem of a film on which we can both agree upon. This movie was not one of them. This poor excuse for a musical was really nothing more than 30 minutes of weak plot loosely tied together with the sudden and frequent interjection of similar musical numbers only roughly relating to the current scene in the sub par storyline. One should have a strong case to sue for mental whiplash after watching this film, with it's abrupt stops and starts from storyline to song number and back again. Don't get me wrong, I love a good musical. While good ones have been few and far between the past couple decades, they are still one of my favorite types of movies (behind a good bloody action film, of course). I was thrilled with Moulin Rouge, although I won't deny being skeptical to the point of completely missing the film while it was in theaters. It had been such a long, long time since Hollywood had produced a good musical, I was absolutely certain the film was going to be dreadful. Yet I was very pleasantly surprised when I finally did watch it when it came out on video. It is off the steam of its success that I even bothered to see Chicago in the theaters, to which I am now sorely disappointed that I wasted $8 and two hours of my time. Simply put, Chicago completely lacks the proper formula to even be considered a musical by my definition. A musical should have smooth transitions into and out of musical numbers, as I have already stated Chicago painfully lacks. It should seem a surreal world, where it appears perfectly natural for everyone to spontaneously bust into well choreographed song and dance for five minutes and then return to their daily lives as though this was their normal routine. Also, musicals are not solely about the big song and dance numbers. There should be some solos or duets interspersed as well, perhaps some with no dancing at all. I understand why they largely neglected to do this with Chicago however, seeing the general lack of real vocal talent in the cast. Lastly, the musical numbers in a musical should be part of the plot, not a break from it. Perhaps Chicago took too much of an influence from MTV, with the majority of it's musical numbers being nothing more than some flashy nonsense and half naked women. If it weren't for the clever camera work focusing solely on the bare parts of the female dancers through the majority of the film, the audience might have been more aware of the many, many other things the movie totally lacks. I was extremely disappointed with the casting in particular. Catherine Zeta-Jones, the only actor in the film who showed any real singing talent, was shafted with only a couple of songs to herself. Meanwhile the absolutely talentless Renee Zellweger, who ironically enough portrays a young woman who can't break into the entertainment industry because she's a crappy singer and dancer, unfortunately gets the majority of the spotlight. While I didn't think much of Richard Gere's performance either, he did at least have the two most entertaining numbers in the film, the only moments of true inspiration in the whole movie, with the marionette news reporters and the courtroom tap dance scenes. There was also a total lack of diversity in the movie's musical themes. All the songs were of nearly identical style and while musically quite good (minus Zellweger's voice), the film definitely needed a broader range of styles. All in all, this is more what I expected from Hollywood for a modern musical. A piece of crap. It's unfortunate to think that movies like Moulin Rouge will likely become the exception, not the rule, when looking at modern musicals moving forward. It simply takes too much time, money, and effort to make them, and the standard requiring all actors to be able to sing and dance no longer exists, making even finding the talent for such a film far more difficult. I should've just followed my first instinct and saw Bulletproof Monk instead...
Yet I was very pleasantly surprised when I finally did watch it when it came out on video. It is off the steam of its success that I even bothered to see Chicago in the theaters, to which I am now sorely disappointed that I wasted $8 and two hours of my time. Simply put, Chicago completely lacks the proper formula to even be considered a musical by my definition. A musical should have smooth transitions into and out of musical numbers, as I have already stated Chicago painfully lacks. It should seem a surreal world, where it appears perfectly natural for everyone to spontaneously bust into well choreographed song and dance for five minutes and then return to their daily lives as though this was their normal routine. Also, musicals are not solely about the big song and dance numbers. There should be some solos or duets interspersed as well, perhaps some with no dancing at all. I understand why they largely neglected to do this with Chicago however, seeing the general lack of real vocal talent in the cast. Lastly, the musical numbers in a musical should be part of the plot, not a break from it. Perhaps Chicago took too much of an influence from MTV, with the majority of it's musical numbers being nothing more than some flashy nonsense and half naked women. If it weren't for the clever camera work focusing solely on the bare parts of the female dancers through the majority of the film, the audience might have been more aware of the many, many other things the movie totally lacks. I was extremely disappointed with the casting in particular. Catherine Zeta-Jones, the only actor in the film who showed any real singing talent, was shafted with only a couple of songs to herself. Meanwhile the absolutely talentless Renee Zellweger, who ironically enough portrays a young woman who can't break into the entertainment industry because she's a crappy singer and dancer, unfortunately gets the majority of the spotlight. While I didn't think much of Richard Gere's performance either, he did at least have the two most entertaining numbers in the film, the only moments of true inspiration in the whole movie, with the marionette news reporters and the courtroom tap dance scenes. There was also a total lack of diversity in the movie's musical themes. All the songs were of nearly identical style and while musically quite good (minus Zellweger's voice), the film definitely needed a broader range of styles. All in all, this is more what I expected from Hollywood for a modern musical. A piece of crap. It's unfortunate to think that movies like Moulin Rouge will likely become the exception, not the rule, when looking at modern musicals moving forward. It simply takes too much time, money, and effort to make them, and the standard requiring all actors to be able to sing and dance no longer exists, making even finding the talent for such a film far more difficult. I should've just followed my first instinct and saw Bulletproof Monk instead...