Product: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat [VHS] (2000)
Rating: 1.0
Bad staging, bad camera work; unsuitable for children
I am one of the few people, apparently, who disliked this video intensely. I remember watching a pre-Donny Osmond staging of it at a small college theater and fell in love. I bought the CD of the original production by Andrew Lloyd Weber/Time Rice and listened until I had the songs memorized. Years later, I saw the Donny Osmond version and thought he did a good job of producing it. His voice was good and so were those of the other performers. The singers playing Joseph's brothers were the highlight of the experience. They were brilliant. However, I was disappointed that they changed the narrator from an alto to a soprano. I also didn't like some of the constumes, though I was admittedly up in the nosebleed section of his production and couldn't see the detail. The Elvis Pharoh's number was WAY overdone in the Donny Osmond's stage production.I bought this video tape to support a local theater production and figured that owning a Donny Osmond version would be better than living without one. I was wrong. The singers playing the brothers were still brilliant, but that is the only good thing I can say about it. I did not like the camera work of the movie at all. I didn't like the opening and closing scenes they added, feeling that it didn't add any production value. I hated most of the costumes involving Potiphar's wife and the cheerleaders in the "Go, Go, Go Joseph" song. The Pharoh's scene was even more hammy than the stage production to the point of being unpalatable and most of the costumes were inappropriate. It was, quite frankly, a raunchy production and had my kids asking questions that needed to wait until they were older to explain. Disgusted, I threw my copy out after the first viewing.