I’ve seen a slew of movies over the past 2 weeks (read: 6). Instead of one monster post of all of them, i’ll do a short review of one each day.
Today’s movie Burlesque. This film has a really strong beginning. The scene where Christina Aguilera’s character earns a spot in the show was well done. We really care about her and then when starts singing, it really hits home. I was sitting there thinking that this might be a modern day A Chorus Line. But no, it’s not. Around 35 minutes in, Burlesque slips into a mediocre movie, and it doesn’t really tell us anything about any of the characters. We know where Aguilera comes from but not how she learned to sing or dance or got her motivation to be a performer. Similarly, the other characters couldn’t even be called 1-demensional. I would say maybe 1/2 demensional. We got no background on any of them – even the guy Aguilera falls in love with. Apparently she likes him because he works at the same place, he had a couch she could sleep on and is good looking. That’s about all we know of him and of her criteria.
As the movie continued, I was waiting for the True Hollywood Story death spiral that always occurs to a newly crowned star – see Ray, The Runaways, and Walk the Line for film examples. That doesn’t happen here. In fact, nothing happens. While it’s refreshing that Aguilera stays the same grounded person throughout the film, it’s also boring. Also, the Cher solo needed to be cut. She didn’t hold my attention at all. I know she’s had a #1 hit in every decade since the 50’s but this isn’t her song for this decade. It sucked
All that nastiness aside, this movie isn’t as bad as you think it could be. 6 out of 10.
