A Brief Review Of Hairspray

I saw the new musical movie remake of Hairspray on Friday and I’ve decided to share some brief thoughts.

Go see this movie. The End.

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Okay, I’ll go into a little more detail.

There aren’t many movies that you could genuinely call “crowdpleasing” but Hairspray is one of them. It’s happy, brightly, peppy, and a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

The movie rests on the shoulders of newcomer Nikki Blonsky as Tracy Turnblad and she hits it out of the park. She has a nice voice and her dancing is top-notch.

The rest of the cast is great too. All of them did a great job but two stuck out for me. Elijah Kelley is damn near a mini-James Brown as Seaweed Stubbs. Also, I can say that after all that hype, John Travolta puts in a really good performances as Edna Turnblad. He makes it work by not overdoing it.

Oh, and I can’t forget about the music. I hadn’t seen the musical play of Hairspray, so I was blown away by the music. Songs like opener “Good Morning Baltimore” and “Welcome To The 60’s” were great.

One of the best things about Hairspray, though, is that it avoids the major pitfall of movie musicals: length. It's under two hours long and because there are few scenes without songs, it moves at a brisk pace.

Overall, this is a summer movie that’s worth your money. Fans of John Waters’ original movie will like the cameos by Waters and members of the original Hairspray cast. It’s family-friendly but still remains a bit edgy in the form of subtle wit.

Go see this movie. The End.