This is another example of how glitz and glam can secure a film an Oscar by appealing to the fruitball contingency within the Academy. My review and rating are slightly skewed because of two subjective factors I have a hard time getting around: 1) I despise Richard Gere; 2) Renée Zellweger hasn’t been pretty since Jerry Maguire, making her hard to look at.
Overall, it’s a good film, but not spectacular. Some interesting lighting and costuming decisions, but it’s also very hokey. Perhaps that comes from the fact that it’s based on a Broadway musical from the era of excess. There’s something about musicals that were produced beginning in the late 60s that just seem excessive and unnecessary. Perhaps it just the way it was converted into a movie that rubs me the wrong way (Cabaret is a great musical but a lousy movie).
With Chicago, the characters have a big thing to do with my being turned off. The characters in this film are deplorable human beings. There is no reason to like any of them and yet they are the only ones we are presented with. Of course, that was the point of the film- two lovely jailbirds hitting the big time by manipulation and sex appeal. While the musical numbers are presented in a clever way (by sort of entering the minds of the singers as if they were actually in the limelight of some glitzy production), there is still next to zero redeeming qualities about the main characters.
While all the glitz and glam packs the film with enough sparkle and fizz to satisfy an Academy fruitball, it’s not enough for me. For a film to be Oscar-worthy, there needs to be substance, which Chicago lacks. It sends the wrong message, akin to dimwit rapper 50 Cent’s motto of Get Rich or Die Trying. When the bad guys succeed in the end, it’s not such a triumph, considering we were never supposed to like them in the first place.
Chicago is a heaping sized portion of glitz and glam with meager portions of substance. Sadly, style wins out over substance again, and the Academy fruitballs have their way with the Best Picture ballots.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!
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