After seeing Chicago: The Musical, I thought it would be interesting to see how the film adaption would compare. The musical had an simplistic design to its set and costumes, but on the movie screen that wouldn’t fly – viewers want an immersive experience. Also, I remember that Chicago was well thought of as a film, in fact doing some research reveals that it won the Oscar for best movie in 2002!

After seeing the film, I would give the movie a two out of five rating. I don’t actually understand why voters thought it deserved an Oscar! I think if they took the plot of Chicago and made it into an actual movie, it would have been more interesting; but I didn’t like the fact that they interspersed the plot with cabaret pieces. It felt disjointed and artificial to have the action cut to song & dance on a stage.

Secondly, I felt the characters of Roxie Hart, and Billy Flynn were better portrayed on stage than in the movie. Richard Gere won a Golden Globe for his role, but I didn’t think he was that strong after seeing the stage version. On stage, Billy Flynn was larger than life and a caricature of a lawyer (reminds of Leisure Suit Larry). I think that was a more effective foil to Amos. I felt Amos and Velma Kelly were no better or worse.

They changed the movie slightly near the end when the prosecutor introduced his final evidence and I thought that was added to give the movie more tension. Also I think they skipped a couple of musical pieces. Finally, I felt the comedic parts just weren’t that funny when they happened in the movie, although that might be due to a decibel/environment thing.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: moviereview