Chicago 2002
This is what a movie is supposed to be: great performances, good music, rich characters, a good plot, and some funny lines. I enjoyed watching it from the beginning and though I worried it would let me down, it kept delivering to the end (my girlfriend was tired of it about a third of the way through but wound up liking it just the same). I had never seen the musical and wasn’t even familiar with it so I got to enjoy the unfolding of the events as much as how it was presented.
The casting is kind of weird and I’d like to think that if they had taken some of the people who have done this on stage (Bebe Neuwirth comes to mind) who can really dance and really sing that it would have been better. But I don’t think the movie would have been served as well with unknowns. You need big names. Richard Gere, while his singing seemed kind of weak and his dancing a little stiff, still gives a great *performance* and also brings instant credibility to the lawyer he plays.
I thought it was a good mix of music numbers and dialog though it would have been easy to put in too much of either one. I think anyone who says that the actors couldn’t pull off the dancing and singing on stage needs to realize that this is a movie and that makes it different. It’s like complaining that a movie actor doesn’t memorize the lines for the whole movie at once. I can see where some critics could have legitimate gripes, but no movie can be everything to everyone.
This is a good fun movie. I’ll give it an A.
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital