"Stop! In the name of... music."

Rating: 1/10 (7 June 2007)

If anything proves the old adage "They don't make 'em like they used to" it's the recent (and I can't write this word without an industrial-scale vat of sarcasm) 'musical' called 'Dreamgirls'.
Starring Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles and Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls is adapted from the highly successful stage musical which is loosely based on the story of Diana Ross and the Supremes and the rise and fall of the Motown record label. The mettle of any musical is tested by the quality of its soundtrack so on that basis Dreamgirls is probably the worst musical I've seen since Moulin Rouge. It's only about half way though the film when, on the way to a fight in an alleyway that one of the characters suddenly bursts into song and we realise that we're watching a musical at all. Up until then it's merely a bad film about the music industry with badder songs (badder in the 'not good sense' as opposed to the James Brown sense) The 'I'm Telling You I'm Not Going' sequence is more than aptly named - I thought I was going to die of old age before it ended. In fact it's probably still going on somewhere. Newcomer Jennifer Hudson, who apparently won herself in an American television contest, steals a show which really isn't worth having. Beyoncé does little more than give 'gorgeous lessons' to all and sundry while Eddie Murphy's much lauded performance is merely adequate. The only oasis in this cinematic desert is the Op-art sets and Beyoncé's 60's/70's Ross-esquire costumes.
Dreamgirls is further evidence that the medium of the musical appears to be an idiom of the past. Unlike the last great film musical Grease (1978), Dreamgirls' editing suggests that none of the dancers are capable of a complete uninterrupted routine and if the songs here were truly of the standard that Motown were putting out they would never have been heard beyond the confines of Berry Gordy's bedroom. Surely Motown, arguably the most important record label in the history of recorded sound, deserves a better tribute that this. No siree-bop, they don't make 'em like they used to. Next time you're in the mood for a truly great musical, with great songs and brilliantly choreographed dance spectacle and you're all Gene Kelly'd out - see James Cagney's little known 1933 classic Footlight Parade' you'll be singing 'Shanghai Lil' for days