Really, Really Bad (I Mean, Really)

Rating: 2/10 (23 July 2007)

What?....What did you say?....Sorry, I'm having a little trouble hearing you....I think all of the caterwauling in this movie gave me permanent hearing loss.......I'm suing Bill Condon.....
Either the stage version of "Dreamgirls" sucked royally and they made a very faithful (and sucky) film version of it, or the team responsible for transferring the stage hit to screen totally butchered what was at one time a good thing. I doubt I'll ever know, because having sat through this mess once, almost nothing could induce me to come within 10 miles of anything remotely "Dreamgirls"-related in future.
Beyonce Knowles looks gorgeous but completely fades into the background as the lead singer in a black trio loosely based on the Supremes. The group's manager, played with a mumble and a sneer by Jamie Foxx, wants to bring black music to a mainstream white audience, but instead sells out to the man and makes the black performers and the music they sing progressively whiter. One of the trio, Effie, doesn't fit into this scheme. She's too black, too loud, too....er, everything, so she's booted. But never fear, Beyonce sees the error of her ways, makes up with Effie and gives Foxx a what for. This whiff of a plot plays out over two hours, all of it whirling by in a nauseating barrage of images and songs that all sound the same, making one wonder if Bill Condon was trying to break some kind of record for how fast he can make a movie plot move.
Someone needs to tell Condon that simply making a film move fast does not make it inherently interesting. Indeed, "Dreamgirls" is a leaden bore, and what little plot there is is ridiculously hard to follow, because scenes just charge from one to another seemingly at random, songs bleed into one another, and whole decades flash by during montages that don't clearly indicate how much time is supposed to be passing. Jennifer Hudson, who received idolatrous praise for this movie, gives a one-note performance as big-mouthed Effie. I think she was meant to be endearing and spunky, but instead she's aggravating as hell. She sings every song at the same ear-splitting volume, and gives no indication that she's taken the time to understand the words she's singing. It doesn't really matter though, as the songs here do nothing to further the plot, and don't match the characters that sing them. The only songs I remotely liked were "Love You I Do," one of the handful written directly for the film, and the pseudo-rap song that Eddie Murphy's character sings at one point (which ends with him dropping his pants!). Effie's big number, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," is intolerable and actually laughable. Beyonce's big number, "Listen," recreates the sound of a pussycat being slowly squeezed through a meat grinder.
Speaking of Eddie Murphy, he's the only thing that makes "Dreamgirls" watchable, and that's really only because he spends all of his screen time doing his Little Richard impression from Saturday Night Live ("I'm getting' in the hot tub!"). Everything else about this movie is a total disaster.
Grade: D-