Saw it on Broadway. Liked this better

Rating: 9/10 (29 December 2006)

The Broadway "Dreamgirls" quickly became a legend because of 1) Michael Bennett's awesome staging, 2) Jennifer Holliday's high-voltage turn as Effie, and 3) a (somewhat unwarranted) rave Frank Rich review in the Times. It can't honestly be said that the writing was first-rate, either the score (an uneasy fusion of Motown and showtune, with heavyhanded near-rhymes) or the book (melodramatic and not always absolutely logical). Well, Bill Condon's film version doesn't repair any of these flaws, but it's sensational entertainment. What a production design! A dazzling display of location and soundstage settings, with costumes so precise and smartly satirical that you always know exactly what year you're in. A couple of transitions from dialog to song and back are a little uncomfortable (this is generally the hardest thing to get right in adapting a stage musical to the screen), but most are fine, and a couple of segues -- like the one of Eddie Murphy's James Early teaching the Dreamettes a song to their actual onstage performance -- are seamlessly brilliant. As one who normally loathes Murphy, I thought him both touching and dynamic as this James Brown-like icon. And everything you've heard about Jennifer Hudson is true. It's a starmaking performance, rather like Streisand's debut in "Funny Girl" in intensity and virtuosity; she also acts, and her facial expressions and body language are as persuasive as her vocal prowess. Plus, she's an attractive full-figured gal, which makes her romance with Curtis (a too-understated Jamie Foxx) more convincing than it was on stage. Anika Noni Rose is a charming Lorrell, and Beyonce Knowles does Diana Ross to perfection. But the real star of the picture, if you ask me, Hudson aside, is Bill Condon. He knows how to rethink stage properties in cinematic turns and pump up the excitement to almost live-Broadway fever pitch. You could rightly accuse "Dreamgirls" of glossing over some of the finer points of social history it covers, and maybe even triteness, but it's one of the two or three best times I've had at the movies this year.