Are you kidding me????

Rating: 1/10 (22 October 2012)

This is one of the worst films I've seen in years. YEARS.
What is it with singers who want to act? Or think they can act? Most can't. And a singer of Aguilera's statue cannot or won't put the real time in, to learn the craft. She can sing, but that's it.
In fact, everyone in this movie sucked. Stanley Tucci, Kristen Bell, Peter Gallagher? WTF? Tucci is okay, but wasted in his role. Bell isn't good, yet she's been quite good in past films. As has Gallagher. Cher isn't even any good either, and she's done some excellent work when she was younger. Given there was talent available to the director of this film, and they mostly sucked... clearly, one has to blame the director. Who never directed anything substantial before this movie. (And probably never will again.) For someone to be making this level of a movie and not know how to work with actors? Un-frickin-believable.
And the story? The story is horrible, the script is horrible, the dialogue is horrible. Extremely amateurish and lame. I lost count the number of times I said a character's EXACT line before they said it. The writer/director of this movie couldn't get good performances from his actors, and couldn't write a decent scene to save his life.
As mentioned by other reviews here, this movie is not about Burlesque, nor is there any Burlesque in it. This writer/director hasn't a clue as to what that is. It's like he wanted to make the movie Cabaret, but since that movie was done many years ago, he'd call this one "Burlesque" -- but it's frickin' cabaret.
Aguilera should stick to singing, and this writer/director should consider another line of work.