Just when you thought modern storytelling couldn’t get any more cannibalistic, along comes a movie based on a stage musical based on a movie.
How do you judge a screen musical? If you don’t walk out humming the tunes to yourself (or belting them out loud) has it failed? Hairspray’s a whole lotta fun – bright, colourful and a little dim-witted, like all musicals, though perhaps the song writing department is its major let down.
Michelle Pfeiffer is superb as station manager Velma Von Tussle, and she positively annihilates her so-so performance in Stardust with her supremely confident and obnoxious turn. James Marsden is certainly showing another side of himself here – it’s taken me a while to shake his portrayal of apparent dickhead Cyclops in the X-Men movies. Finally, Zac Efron is sickeningly just like the type of poster you’d find on a teenage girl’s wall.
I enjoy seeing a comedy take on serious issues rather than sit through a pretentious and/or dull Oscar-hopeful drama, and Hairspray very simply points out how silly segregation was by virtue of its own silliness.
I haven’t actually seen John Water’s original film, but I’ve gathered that it is the most accessible of his features; though I’m sure this musical version is still toned down. This film had me grinning like an idiot, even if I didn’t retain much after I left.