It is amazing the number of remakes we have had lately. Not many musicals have been remade but many are in the pipeline. I was very surprised when this one did not do so well. I expected it to be the big musical hit of the year. This year’s ‘Hairspray’ or ‘Mamma Mia!’.
After seeing the film I can understand why. It really wasn’t a musical in the traditional sense. People did not break into song and dance at every moment; they just performed musical numbers as they were at a performing arts school. The musical numbers were quite good and well performed and directed. The problem for me was the story. It seemed like they tried to cram in too much in a very little time. The film covers about 3 years and yet things go by so very fast. They try to include so many different characters that they don’t have time to properly flesh out all their stories. One example is a guy who is a dancer. At the beginning of the film we see him struggling to perform and kind of know he’s not going to do well (making you wonder why he was chosen). But then we don’t see him for the middle part of the film and then he turns up at the end. It would have been nice to see a bit more of his struggle through the film and see him at least trying. We also hear the students mention end of year performances they do, which would have been nice to see.
As mentioned above there is very little time in the film for any of the actors to get much time to fully develop their characters. So to pick out a good performance is hard. Of the young cast Kay Panabaker does very well as a naive actress but her story is very clichéd and Naturi Naughton is a great singer too. Of the adults, again not much time to do much. I would like to have seen more of Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth. But the best part of the film was Megan Mullally. We mostly know her from ‘Will & Grace’ and here she gives a performance so different from Karen that I was so pleased. She has a brilliant scene in the film when she takes some of the kids to a karaoke bar that was wonderful.
A very big disappointment for fans of musicals and those with fond memories of the original. I’ve not seen the original but hope to soon so as to compare.
After seeing the film I can understand why. It really wasn’t a musical in the traditional sense. People did not break into song and dance at every moment; they just performed musical numbers as they were at a performing arts school. The musical numbers were quite good and well performed and directed. The problem for me was the story. It seemed like they tried to cram in too much in a very little time. The film covers about 3 years and yet things go by so very fast. They try to include so many different characters that they don’t have time to properly flesh out all their stories. One example is a guy who is a dancer. At the beginning of the film we see him struggling to perform and kind of know he’s not going to do well (making you wonder why he was chosen). But then we don’t see him for the middle part of the film and then he turns up at the end. It would have been nice to see a bit more of his struggle through the film and see him at least trying. We also hear the students mention end of year performances they do, which would have been nice to see.
As mentioned above there is very little time in the film for any of the actors to get much time to fully develop their characters. So to pick out a good performance is hard. Of the young cast Kay Panabaker does very well as a naive actress but her story is very clichéd and Naturi Naughton is a great singer too. Of the adults, again not much time to do much. I would like to have seen more of Kelsey Grammer and Bebe Neuwirth. But the best part of the film was Megan Mullally. We mostly know her from ‘Will & Grace’ and here she gives a performance so different from Karen that I was so pleased. She has a brilliant scene in the film when she takes some of the kids to a karaoke bar that was wonderful.
A very big disappointment for fans of musicals and those with fond memories of the original. I’ve not seen the original but hope to soon so as to compare.
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