Gobble, gobble...

Rating: 2/10 (31 January 2007)

...as in this is an outright turkey. There are so many things wrong with this movie that it's hard to choose what to criticize. First, let me say I had some hope in its early stages: the music was nice 'n' rough like early Motown, the energy was palpable, and it looked like some interesting characterizations might develop. Within the first half hour, all that potential had dissipated into lame ballads that sounded more 80s/90s than 60s (was Diane Warren around then?); the energy went flaccid with poor direction; and only Eddie Murphy as James Thunder Early managed to bring complexity, interest, and soul to his character. It would have been wise to expand Murphy's screen time so we viewers could be rewarded, at least a little, for showing up. Murphy's look when a male actor faintly tried to dissuade him from hitting the hard drugs was almost worth the price of admission. A performance worthy of an Oscar nomination.
For all the talent and time dedicated to singing, many of the vocalizations fell flat. I mostly blame the director who had almost all his singers start at a full-out volume instead of building their songs. Even the talented Miss Hudson suffered from this approach, thus causing substantial suffering to this listener's ears. And what was the waiting around forever to interject singing as part of the action/dialogue?!!? If a director is determined to use that fairly standard musical technique, then he/she better establish that approach much, much earlier than in Dreamgirls. Whadda bust, whadda waste.
Finally (though there is much more fodder for dissection), even if the storyline was very accurate in its Supremes depiction (as Mary Wilson says), it was rarely presented in an interesting way by the director. Condon seemed more interesting in placing Beyonce in as many different looks as possible. She did look good, too - which brings me to the only consistently wonderful part of this film: the look (not the camera work, which was ho-hum), but the make up and the costumes. Those artists nailed it, accurately depicting the stylings of the 60s & 70s. Going' out on a good word....