A different perspective

Rating: 7/10 (7 January 2007)

All though I've been to a couple of musicals, I wouldn't call myself someone who is deeply immersed into that particular culture. As for the hype about the Jennifer Hudson's debut and all that stuff, I was living in a cave. I understand now that "Dreamgirls" was a popular and influential stage-play that paid tribute to many Motown icons. My criticisms of the film are usually instantly refuted by the fact that this is a musical or that it was referencing the original source material. For all films, I don't pay attention to those specific details, I look at how the film translates to screen. With "Dreamgirls", I found many themes bewildering, and I do indeed enjoy many other screen-adapted musicals. I guess I can say that I wasn't prepared for Hudson's mental breakdown...I mean spectacular singing monologue. While the audience gazed in amazement as Hudson sang vocal acrobatics, I wasn't convinced by her situation. Sure the singing was nice, I thought the songs could have been better (they don't measure up to the Motown classics), but that shouldn't be the only thing of quality in the film. I found the characters very undeveloped and the story was clichéd to no end. I wouldn't condemn a film for being clichéd if it brought an extra something to the table, but I just couldn't connect with the story. I found the pacing to be too erratic. The film delivered one song after the next and involved such forced emotion and drama I was taken aback. Due to this, the big anticipated highlights of the film don't seem warranted.
There are some highlights. Eddie Murphy delivers an interesting and humorous performance; it may be the best of his career. Hudson succeeds in vocal execution more than her acting, but she delivers an acceptable performance. We get the expected performance from Beyonce who generally plays herself. The set designs and costumes were excellent, of course. The movie was typical crowd-pleasing Hollywood with no soul or real depth, at least for me. A fun ride for obviously a lot of people, but marginal for myself and certainly undeserving of the heaps of hype.