This movie has a great, imaginative opening, and then... maybe one more imaginative song after that. It never quite reaches its potential, becoming a fairly incoherent mess that takes itself far too seriously for a musical with such awkwardly-written lyrics. Disappointing, because I wanted to so badly to love this, and from the first 10 minutes I thought I was going to. 2.5 stars.
Best Part: The opening song with the grave robber.
Worst Part: The ending. Did we really need our heroine to sing a song about how our genetics don't define us? Really?
Flickchart: #900, below There Will Be Blood (which is 200 or so too low) and above Kiss Me Kate.
2 comments:
Firstly, they're very clear that it's an opera and not a musical. The distinction is not terribly important to me, but it was emphasized heavily in the bonus content on the Blu-ray.
Anyway, this was one of those movies I liked more in theory than in practice. I loved the production design and I thought the cast was solid - yes, even Paris Hilton. (So weird that the lead actress was the girl in the Spy Kids movies!) I liked the premise quite a bit, too.
But, yeah, the music wears very, very thin after a very, very short time and because it's an opera, it's got music from start to finish. There's no real break from it and for a viewer like me, that's just way too much singing - even if the songs are to my liking.
I have it at #608/1344 at present, sandwiched between (strangely enough) Mickey's Christmas Carol and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I think the middle of my Flickchart might need some tending...
LOL! That's fun that they're so picky about that distinction, because the line between rock opera and musical grows pretttty thin. (I wonder if they are equally picky about calling Joseph, Rent, and Jesus Christ Superstar operas, even though there's no classical singing in any of them either...?)
But, yeah. The music wasn't interesting enough to justify how much of it there was. I have no problem with rock operas (some of my favorite shows have little to no dialogue) but the music all has to be good. This... really isn't.
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