SusanS

You can tell this film is directed by a visual effects person--the film is high on visual beauty (often to a superfluous degree) and very low on interesting or even logical storytelling. I would describe this film as "hilariously bad," with an emphasis on the hilarious and the bad. The audience I was sitting in at some all just let out a collective laugh (I think it was when she started floating people through the air), and after that it just went downhill, with people openly commenting on the nonsensical plot elements and heckling the characters on screen. Basically it takes elements of more successful movies (Lord of the Rings, Frozen, Beauty and the Beast, etc) and tries to replicate their successful parts in a movie that adds very little to the story of Sleeping Beauty. The beginning of the film is the most successful; I wish they had drawn out the story of Maleficent as a child--the actress who played her was quite hypnotic.

There's really just one thing to say: Tyler Perry, you sir are no Morgan Freeman. I really hope this doesn't become a franchise, or if it has to, that they hire some real writers to sculpt an actual suspense movie and not some summarized, cliched version of its better predecessors. How this borderline tortureporn got a PG-13 rating is beyond me. I felt bad for the talented actors who had to say those lines. I look forward to seeing them in better projects in the future.

Despite the sense of urgency the end of the world might bring to a story, this film slows almost to a screeching halt by the last third. Unfortunately, two talented stars were misused and mismatched for a story that started out promising in its strangeness (showing what the end of the world brings out in people) but turns into an okay romance that uses every plot cliche possible to hammer in the point that it's never too late to find someone who moves you. It's not a BAD movie, just a terribly uneven one. Great structural gimmicks were created and then thrown away, marvelous supporting characters and plots were introduced and then discarded meaninglessly. What seems to be an attempt at anarchical storytelling (which could have worked amazingly considering the theme) instead just became a sloppy soap opera intent on being emotionally satisfying rather than thought-provoking or challenging.

Basically, I laughed and cried the entire time--it is clear that someone who understands both the humor and heart of the Muppets has finally picked up the torch where Jim Henson left off. For all its zany tongue-in-cheek, breaking-the-fourth-wall humor (which IS totally in line with Muppets tradition), it also, without directly addressing it, deals with the gaping hole in our hearts left by Jim Henson's untimely death-- whether the Muppets could ever be magical again, or, as Kermit sings about, if what they used to have was now broken beyond repair. Fortunately for all of us, even broken hearts can still be magical. Gee it's good to be together again!

I love Miranda July and her work (after falling in love with You and Me and Everyone We Know), and was nervous going into her second film with such high expectations. About three quarters of the way through the film I was delightfully enchanted by the film's quirkiness and turns of plot, but I figured I knew where it was going. And then the movie took a marvelous unexpected leap, and it took my breath away. If you are expecting a film that will give you the story line, this is not the one. But if you want an unconventional look at a generation of adults coming of age in an unconventional way, this is definitely for you. And while I love Miranda July, Hamish Linklater really steals this film. At that moment I was talking about, he takes the film to a whole new level. It was beautiful.

The Bottom Line: Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer save this film from being a two-dimensional pat-on-the-back for non-racist white people in the 1960s. Every time the story gets a little too sappy and cut-and-dry, Davis' Aibilene returns to the screen to bring a complexity to the film that I don't think actually exists in the original book. The film is wildly uneven, I think precisely because of the skilled, seasoned Black actresses' ability to create accurate complexity out of cardboard characters contrasting with much younger, less experienced white actresses unable to the same. In the end, it succumbs to its movie-long desire to tie a nice bow around a situation that, in 1964 in Jackson, Mississippi, was everything but harmonious.

Maybe a 5.8. At its best, it's a tribute to Cabaret and Chicago, and at its worst, it's a poor, glaringly obvious imitation of them. The best parts of Burlesque is the song and dance numbers, the wonderful chemistry of Stanley Tucci and every actor he interacts with (especially Cher), and the occasional moment of actual romantic comedy (and there are a few, even between the young lovers). The worst parts of Burlesque: the no-real-conflict storyline, the criminal under-use of Alan Cumming, and the missed opportunity at having Kristen Bell's character have a real rivalry with Christina Aguilera's (or any development, for that matter). Bell and Cumming are both tremendous musical actors, and it seems such a waste to have them in a musical where they don't get to strut their stuff. But, when it's good, it's a pleasure. When it's bad, it's painful.