I finally got around to seeing Dreamgirls the other night, and I was really surprised by it. Not in a good way either.
Look, let me say this right up front: Dreamgirls is a good movie. It is. it was entertaining to watch, the music was fantastic (for the most part) and Eddie Murphy was surprisingly wonderful in it. This is a good movie, well worth the watching… but at the same time it isn’t a “GREAT” movie, and it also isn’t one I’ll be watching again.
The movie is a lot of pop and dazzle (which is fun to watch) without any soul or depth. One of the glaring weaknesses in this department is Beyonce Knowles, who wows us with her energy, but fails to do what most other actors do in movies… ACT. To bring the character to life, to give he character depth.
With so much hype, and so much adulation in advance before people even saw it, I feel pretty safe in saying that Dreamgirls is this year’s Brokeback Mountain. A good little film worth seeing, that got way too overpraised and became the “in” movie to say great things about before people even saw it.
This, like Brokeback Mountain, is just another example of Hollywood insiders getting caught up in the “trendy movie” of the month, saying outrageously positive things about it because that’s the “in” thing to do. Well… Dreamgirls just isn’t THAT good. It’s good, you should go see it… but lower your expectations a bit and just enjoy it for what it is… a fun little musical that will entertain you for 2 hours… but it’s really not much more than that.
This film deserves no Oscar nominations (except for PERHAPS Eddie Murphy) and even in a weak year certainly doesn’t deserve to be considered one of the year’s best. This is indeed Brokeback all over again.
