Movie opened across Australia tonight some thoughts.
7.30 pm season walked out 9.56 pm , overstuffed with scenes that add nothing to the storyline. Sadly bland and worst of all devoid of magic, charm , wonder. Halle Bailey is wonderful, but really is let down by the numbers direction. The musical numbers lack. Prince Eric should never sing. The Scuttle Rap the less said the better. Go watch the 1989 masterpiece instead this weekend. The kids in my screening were bored. Yet another misguided cash grab by Disney.
Its not the worst of the Disney remakes, it just should have been better.
Well I didn't want to get into it, but he's a Satanist.
Every full moon he sacrifices 4 puppies to the Dark Lord and smears their blood on his paino.
This should help you understand the score for Wicked a little bit more.
Tazber's: Reply to
Is Stephen Schwartz a Practicing Christian
rosscoe(au) said: The Scuttle Rap the less said the better.
Lol, the Scuttlebutt rap song seems to be universally reviled.
I've read / heard several reviews say that this is one of their better live action remakes, but considering how the majority of them have been pretty bad, I don't think the bar is set that high : )
"You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!" - Betty Parris to Abigail Williams in Arthur Miller's The Crucible
I could be misremembering, but it feels like this one is being released with much more fanfare than BEUATY AND THE BEAST and LION KING, and they seem to be going to greater lengths to talk about the evolutions of the property. Or maybe it's just in my circles.
7.30 pm season walked out 9.56 pm , overstuffed with scenes that add nothing to the storyline. Sadly bland and worst of all devoid of magic, charm , wonder. Halle Bailey is wonderful, but really is let down by the numbers direction. The musical numbers lack. Prince Eric should never sing. The Scuttle Rap the less said the better. Go watch the 1989 masterpiece instead this weekend. The kids in my screening were bored. Yet another misguided cash grab by Disney.
Its not the worst of the Disney remakes, it just should have been better."
Thanks for your review, many people have said Halle is amazing but the rest is very blah. They couldn't have picked someone more handsome for Prince Eric? Out of all the white men with brown hair that auditioned?
I don't think this will be a bomb like Dumbo or as weird as The Lion King, but I think people will be left wanting more. And then they'll turn on the original.
ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "I could be misremembering, but it feels like this one is being released with much more fanfare than BEUATY AND THE BEAST and LION KING, and they seem to be going to greater lengths to talk about the evolutions of the property. Or maybe it's just in my circles."
If anything it's getting more fanfare than Beauty and the Beast because of the timing of the release. Beauty and the Beast was dropped into theaters in the middle of March, which never seems to be when the audiences are rushing to theaters (though it did managed to cross the one billion world-wide gross mark).
Watched a 6pm showing. TLM is one of my absolute favorite Disney films and I mostly enjoyed. Didn't love every choice by far, but I didn't aggressively hate it like I have every other adaptation (minus Cinderella).
Scuttlebutt was a bad song and bad placement.
Also can't forgive the continued erasure of Her Voice.
The one thing that takes you so much out of the movie ( apart from boredom ) is how awful a song/Lyric writer Lin-Michael Miranda is. Why they never used the extra songs written for the original movie is beyond me or some from the Broadway musical.
Well I didn't want to get into it, but he's a Satanist.
Every full moon he sacrifices 4 puppies to the Dark Lord and smears their blood on his paino.
This should help you understand the score for Wicked a little bit more.
Tazber's: Reply to
Is Stephen Schwartz a Practicing Christian
Jeremy Jahns has just posted his review. He thought Halle Bailey's performance was great and thought Prince Eric in this iteration was an improvement from the original animated film. But, he had nitpicks about a lot of everything else. He ultimately gave it the same rating he gave Rob Marshall's previous film, Mary Poppins Returns, "a good time no alcohol required (at matinee price)." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyCj3P6ZaTg
I went to see this film yesterday. Overall it is enjoyable and Halle Bailey's Ariel is quite charming (even though the lack of acting experience shows). In some scenes it seems like the material is on top of her instead of the other way around and in other scenes she comes across as very sincere and real.
The film starts with a very big disappointment, as the first 2 songs are cut. Both the beautiful instrumental climax of the castle/swimming merfolk and the song "daughters of Triton" are no longer there. We see the ship in the waves and the camera goes underwater and we hear a few seconds of orchestra building up, and I felt my eyes getting a little wet, and then the shot and music was cut to another shot (with just noise) of the ship again. Which was weird, and then we saw another underwater shot for the 2nd time, and again, a little hint of the instrumental melody of part of your world started and I felt my eyes almost getting wet again. And then it suddenly stopped again?! And then there was a silent shot of Triton and his daughters sitting on the underwater "stools", having a chat without music. And that was that. So basically, the melody went nowhere and stopped out of nothing. This was like a hard slap in my face. This would have been a glorious opening, they even gave us 2 setups towards that melody and they threw it away. Why? I was beginning to ascend out of my seat and then hit with a baseball bat. This really should have been the moment to captivate the audience right away and make them fall in love with the beauty of the film. Now I could tell the audience wasn't charmed at all yet.
What follows is a couple of scenes with dialogue to set the story and setting. The whole story line is the same as the original film, with little changes in details here and there. Sebastian, flounder and scuttle are really not funny anymore and do add little to the film. What I also didn't like was the unnecessary changes in female empowerment, Ariel is now the one who kills Ursula and saves the damsel in distress called Eric. Ariel is the one who refuses the kiss first. Ariel doesn't sign anything with Ursula, she is just turned into a human without proper consent, so we can't really blame her, Ursula also put a little extra something in the potion which makes Ariel know nothing about a kiss or the actual agreement. So we as the audience could never think that Ariel actually wants a man and tries him to kiss her, etc. This all felt a bit unnecessary.
Aside from this forced tweaks, I actually did like the film. There were many moments that put a smile on my face, such as the "Part of your world" scene, the "Under the sea" scene was really endearing and the photo realistic animals made me giggle. The reprise of part of your world had me in tears, it was really well sung and acted. The desire and urge she portrayed was so sincere that she was almost shaking. Like a primal instinct that nobody in the world could stop. Very impressive.
I especially appreciated the scenes between her and king Triton, very intense and emotional and I love the extra dialogue and backstory details. Some of their scenes together had me in tears too.
What also was very lovely was the romance and meetings between Ariel and Eric, it was just very charming and well done. Added little moments that I appreciated. The scene "Kiss the girl" was such a beautiful sincere moment, which caught me by surprise. I never really had a particular interest in that scene. But it felt so sincere and beautiful, like the whole world was good at that moment, maybe a part of it was also the nostalgia, but it was just very peaceful, wholesome and well acted and the song was much more beautifully arranged than the original version. It felt real.
I really began to root for Ariel and Eric here and was getting into the story. I generally liked the scenes on land more than the scenes under water. I also liked the portrayal of Ursula (except for a few added, too modern and popular lines), and she sang "poor unfortunate souls" quite well. I also liked the character of Vanessa.
The final few scenes between Ariel and Triton had me in tears. I have never cried or gotten even slightly emotional with any of the Disney remakes before. But the tears were gone soon when there was no ending music and a very cheap version of "Under the sea" was played during the end titles. Also there are 3 new songs, one for Eric, one for Scuttle and one for Ariel. All 3 are terrible. They pull the film down quite a bit. It feels like they are written by non-professionals.
In my opinion the film was enjoyable overall, with 4 emotional moments, a few funny and endearing moments but also many not so enjoyable moments. All in all, I think these kind of remakes are enjoyable to watch once, but will never live up to the quality, class, basically to the legend that the original animated film is.
For anyone that's seen it, is Melissa McCarthy as bad as some people are saying she is as Ursula?
A Chorus Line revival played its final Broadway performance on August 17, 2008. The tour played its final performance on August 21, 2011. A new non-equity tour started in October 2012 played its final performance on March 23, 2013. Another non-equity tour launched on January 20, 2018. The tour ended its US run in Kansas City and then toured throughout Japan August & September 2018.