What is this modern phenomena of movie musicals apologizing for being a musical? I saw “Hairspray” yesterday and was very disappointed. Having seen the broadway original cast twice, I guess I was setting myself up for dissapointment.
It started out good but then it just started to stray. Stray hairs that needed hairspray... needed the camp of the original. John Travolta was not a drag queen. He took the whole art form of drag queendom and again, apologized for it. His take was to treat the character and play it as an actor. So there seemed to be no reason at all why a man was playing this role.
The young lady playing Tracy was a clone of the originals combined (Ricki Lake AND Marissa Jaret Winouker) and she seemed to be in awe of being IN the musical during the entire movie.
Zac Ephron was out of place for some reason. He was too plastic and not likable. The wink thing he did was disturbing and un-appealing. You didn't trust him because he seemed to be too perfect.
Amanda Bynes... underused.
The kid playing Seaweed... stole the show. When he performed, the others looked at him as if they were thinking, “wow... so this is HOW you perform in a movie musical.”
Queen Latifah... was ok. Nothing stand out, nothing remarkable... and in a role that would have HAD her being remarkable. And that's the thing... all of the characters for the movie now were watered down. There was no edge to it at all. And in the science fiction experiment transfer from movie to musical to movie musical... like a stepford wife, the personality was missing.
The one good thing in the movie... Christopher Walken. He had the offbeat quality one expects in a John Waters movie. Even though it wasn't a John Waters movie now. It was a tamed down version for the mass public.
Who says that the mass public couldn't be exposed to the real thing?
This is the mass public though that unfortunately entertainment on a mass level is being tailored for. In THIS version, you can't BE a man dressed as a woman, you have to be an actor playing the role of a woman. Which, yes, it was, but it was the WAY it was done. Harvey Fierstein on Broadway didn't even attempt to make his voice feminine (as if he could) and that's what made it so campy and fun.
AND one of the main aspects of the Broadway show, the dancing was even short-changed.
Oh, and James Marsden was great and looked like he was having a lot of fun. Who knew he had this in him?
Michelle Pfieffer was banal. A great stage role chewed up and spat out and it just sat there like puke with the pink powder sprinkled on it. (How's THAT for a review?)
Too bad.
Go see shows on BROADWAY... movies ruin them (unless they are being directed by Rob Marshall who isn't afraid to make a movie musical and who is unapologetic)