Fantastic

Rating: Null/10 (29 December 2006)

The movie is long...the third act lingers and the dialogue gets stale. But by the time we arrive here we have already become attached to the lives and story of these folks. There is not one weak performance..there are several standouts. You know by now how good Jennifer Hudson is, but if you do not see her perform the standout song, "And I Am Telling You (I'm Not Going)", then you will miss one of the singular momentous cinematic experiences in the last 20 years. I cannot for the life of me remember cheering halfway through a musical number, not on Broadway..and certainly not in a movie theater. But I did, and you will...and at the end of the movie you will clap loudest for her, but only after doing so for all the other actors that made this a truly memorable experience. Here's a sentence no one thought they would ever mutter..."Eddie Murphy should win an Oscar"...wow!