Quite overrated

Rating: 4/10 (8 June 2009)

I am so glad that I didn't buy this movie on Blu-ray when it first came out even though I am a fan of both Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. I saw it first on Canal Plus Film HD in really good picture and OK sound.
The movie looks great with the normal dark Burton atmosphere. I love the old musicals with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, and all the other great musical stars of the golden age of the Hollywood musical motion picture in the 40s and 50s. But I really don't like the modern musicals like Hairspray, Chicago and this movie. This movie is the best of them all because of Burton's handling of the story and his sets looking like sets. I really don't like these movies with people singing and dancing in the middle of city that is filmed in the city. There are exceptions, of course, like "West Side Story" and "On The Town". Musicals are not meant to be realistic. You can see that in all the great Arthur Freed musicals. But every musical now has people singing and dancing on location in the big city which looks so stupid. This is where this movie towers above them all.
But what I don't like about this movie is the mediocre singing of all the actors. Why not have really great singing actors do the parts? There are so many really great singing actors that could have made a name for themselves in the movies and the studio could have more stars to build up and make money of. Instead Warners and Burton chose to have very well known actors sing badly.
The songs were really good and really well integrated into the plot. I never felt like the story stopped when they burst out in song. But you need people that can sing or else everything falls apart. The producers and Burton should have made the same decision that the producers and director of "My Fair Lady" did when they decided to dub Audrey Hepburn in the singing because they felt that Hepburn didn't have the voice necessary. I have heard the temp track of Hepburn singing one of the songs and she sounded better than either Helena Bonham Carter or Johnny Depp. She was even musical. Carter and Depp were not.
Being such a fan of both Burton and Depp I was very disappointed and I was very glad that I didn't buy the movie. Since the singing was such an integral part of the movie it ruined the whole experience of what could have been a really great movie.