Almost a classic

Rating: 7/10 (10 February 2007)

This is a thinly-veiled version of the Motown story. Having grown up in Detroit in this era, and knowing some more of the background (my dad worked at the Michigan State Fair for some of these years), this worked very well for me. There is a very wonderfully-done backdrop about the issue of race relations that you can see changing over the years covered by this movie. It is subtly done, but probably one of the best parts of the film. The story and music are also well done (like all musicals, though, some of the singing was considerably better than others. Beyonce did a great job, I thought). What kept this from really being award material for me, though, was an over-reliance on the tradition genre of a "musical" where some of the plot is sung. If those 2 or 3 scenes were eliminated the movie would have been a classic for me.