It’s a musical and John Travolta dances. What more could you want from a movie?
Not much…
Except Queen Latifah and whole lot of rhythm. There’s not much to critique, except, well… a main character issue. (The following should not take away from the stellar performances by Latifa, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer and especially the "Negro Singers." Truly marvelous! A must-see.)
I assume the main character was Tracy Turnblad, but please correct me if I’m wrong. And if you say it’s an ensemble cast, I challenge you to narrow the story down to one central character. The writers must have. For me, I'm guessing, that was Tracy.
While she was an excellent singer and dancer, lovable naïve and strong, I didn’t feel like she had all that much to lose if she didn’t get to be on the show.
She risks life and limb to stand up for what is right (in an amazingly touching scene led by the poignant performance of Latifa), but in the end it doesn’t seem to matter to her parents, the show or her fans if she’s not on Corny Collins show anymore.
The stakes weren’t high enough for Tracy, and therefore, tension was lost in the third act, when the Ms. Hairspray contest turned into an outrageous dance-a-thon rather than a culmination of all that was amazing about the first 80 minutes of the movie.
2 comments:
I don't consider myself a shallow peson, but John Travolta's whole get up is way too creepy for me to sit through this movie. I don't care how many good reviews it gets, or if it ends sweeping the Oscars for that matter -- creepy is creepy.
I see what you're saying. The amazing thing is, by the end, you don't think of him as Travolta anymore.
Post a Comment