Dreamgirls

For the first half hour, Dreamgirls is a lot of fun. With whippet-smart lines, a kick-ass soul soundtrack, a set and costume design that fully realises the '60s Motown era it so desperately strives for and Eddie Murphy riffing on his James Brown shtick, the musical promised to be a real treat. But then - and it happens suddenly - the movie unravels, spiralling out of control as it dumps the classic soul for the samey modern R&B sound, Murphy is relegated to the wings and Dreamgirls ends up losing itself in too many dead-end and uninteresting subplots that take far, far too long to wind down. The main plot follows the fortunes of The Dreamettes, a trio of wannabe soul singers, who find themselves singing backup to the popular James 'Thunder' Early (Murphy). Their performance gains the attention of promoter Curtis Taylor Jnr. (Foxx) who offers them a record deal and suddenly, the sky's the limit. But when lead singer Effie (Hudson) is replaced by the more attractive Deena (Knowles), tensions spark in the group and things begin to fall apart. Condon, who adapted Chicago to the big screen, has a knack of making the songs integral to the plot when most musicals seem to wait around for a song and dance number. His name-checking of the era's bands, and the nods and winks to the time's zeitgeists are good for a laugh; but when they start to make irrelevant gestures to the big issues like Martin Luther King and the Chicago riots, we wonder what point Condon is trying to make. Murphy is fun and with one glance shows that the man can do serious drama if he was given the chance. However, Knowles doesn't have a lot to do but sing, and Foxx tries too hard to be intense, almost frowning his way into facial spasms. Hudson, making her acting debut, diminishes everyone else on screen. She takes centre stage and is certainly more noticeable that anyone else - but is that because she's louder than war? She certainly is when she starts to sing. What passes for singing these days is shouting (Christina Aguilera, Whitney Houston stand up), shouting a word for so long, by the time the 'singer' finally gets to the end of it, you've forgotten what the word was and the line doesn't make any sense anymore. Okay, a musical is not to be taken seriously as it's just a bit of a laugh, but for the most part, Dreamgirls attempts to be a strong drama - and characters that sing their pain don't really have the necessary depth to lend themselves to sympathy. Dreamgirls is a musical that, bar the aforementioned first half hour, has no focus, has nothing to say and uses every rags-to-riches cliche in the book.