A perfectly good hour, wasted

I rented the movie “Hairspray”. If I could go back in time, not only would I not rent it, I would stick a sign up on the shelf at Blockbuster that reads “don’t do it, just walk away”. It was one of the WORST movies I have ever seen.

I am a huge fan of the original “Hairspray” movie. I don’t really understand why someone felt it needed to be remade. The first movie focused on the dances that the kids learned to do, the remake was almost entirely singing. Like, every five seconds singing, almost no spoken dialogue. What was up with that?

And John Travolta, oh my GOD. Doesn’t he have a manager? The prosthetic face thing he wore was AWFUL. It was completely smooth like a mask, no pores, no wrinkles, no lines-just a weird smoothness that looked completely fake. And the accent he spoke in-what WAS that? It wasn’t a lady’s voice, it wasn’t a man’s voice, it was something in between, with an odd sort of accent. I was so turned off by the way he looked and sounded that I fast-forwarded through any scene he was in.

The girl who played Tracy was cute and very enthusiastic, Amanda Bynes was…eh. I know she can do quirky, we used to watch her in “The Amanda Show”. But her Penny Pingleton was stiff and almost emotionless. And Alison Janney, who played Mrs. Pingleton, was also more restrained than her wacky predecessor.

The standout of this movie for me was Elijah Kelley as Seaweed. Every time he was on screen, my eyes were on him. His dancing was superb, his singing strong, and he’s cute! I looked him up on IMdb, and he has been mostly a background actor up until now, so I hope this role means we’ll be seeing more of him.

So despite my enjoyment of Mr. Kelley’s performance, I still can’t recommend this. There were no bonus features at all, nothing to lend a little personal warmth to a remake that relied more on the singing talents of it’s actors than their acting. Even Christopher Walken couldn’t help this turkey of a film. Two thumbs DOWN.