John Waters acolytes will hate me for this, but I saw the recent movie musical version of "Hairspray" before I saw Waters' original, and I couldn't get over the feeling that the original fails in comparison.
Ricki Lake does not have what it takes to play Tracy Turnblad, the chubby girl with the big hair who lands a spot on a teen dance show and becomes a Baltimore sensation. Tracy should be so engaging and lovable that no one can help but root for her, and Lake is definitely not that girl. It doesn't help that the rest of the cast acts like they're reading their lines off of cue cards, or that Waters lost all ability (or interest) in bringing his movie to a coherent conclusion. It's like Waters sets out to make his film too weird for the mainstream, but the directing and acting are too pedestrian to elevate it to the level of camp. So by the end it's just sort of boring.
I'm vaguely turned off by John Waters movies. They're always so cheap looking and lazily directed, like no one, not Waters, the actors or the film artists, could be bothered to take anything very seriously. My question is: why should I expend the energy in watching this movie if the people who made it weren't even interested in the project to begin with?
Grade: C
Ricki Lake does not have what it takes to play Tracy Turnblad, the chubby girl with the big hair who lands a spot on a teen dance show and becomes a Baltimore sensation. Tracy should be so engaging and lovable that no one can help but root for her, and Lake is definitely not that girl. It doesn't help that the rest of the cast acts like they're reading their lines off of cue cards, or that Waters lost all ability (or interest) in bringing his movie to a coherent conclusion. It's like Waters sets out to make his film too weird for the mainstream, but the directing and acting are too pedestrian to elevate it to the level of camp. So by the end it's just sort of boring.
I'm vaguely turned off by John Waters movies. They're always so cheap looking and lazily directed, like no one, not Waters, the actors or the film artists, could be bothered to take anything very seriously. My question is: why should I expend the energy in watching this movie if the people who made it weren't even interested in the project to begin with?
Grade: C