All show, hardly any substance...

Rating: 4/10 (15 January 2007)

**CONTAINS SPOILERS**
Saw this last night, wasn't too impressed. I went into Dreamgirls thinking it was a film along the lines of 'Ray' & 'Walk The Line'...a biographical film about a musician/music group. It turned out to be a full-blown musical, and I'm not much a fan of those. Nevertheless, I gave it a chance and came out a bit exhausted. WAAAY too much singing for my taste (a song was sang at an average of every 5 minutes), and NOWHERE near enough plot/story. Everything just happens. We got absolutely NO inclination that Beyonce & Jamie Foxx's characters were going to end up together, got hardly any evidence that would lead one to believe that Jennifer Hudson's character would be kicked out of the group. We're led to assume that Eddie Murphy & the 3rd Dreamgirl are together, and 20 mins later they break up. The filmmakers seem to just brush through everything, and it was still too long....that's very hard to do, and not at all good for a film.
As far as performances, Jennifer Hudson was brilliant. This was my first time seeing/hearing about her (as I don't watch American Idol, etc.) and I was floored by how talented and powerful she was. No way was I expecting a newcomer to COMPLETELY outshine Beyonce the way she did; she not only out-shined her acting-wise, but also singing-wise. She simply blew Beyonce out of the water! Kudos to her, she deserves all the praise she's been getting and will continue to get. My main motivation for even watching this film was for Eddie Murphy, who did not disappoint. His performance was excellent, though I just couldn't stop laughing every time I saw him because all I could think of was Randy Jackson (one of the many characters he played in Coming To America).
With a better, more fleshed-out story this film could've been great, but it's just marginal with a couple bright spots here and there (Hudson & Murphy).
** out of **** stars.