Reviews

Dreamgirls

No-town Motown

By BRETT MICHEL | February 20, 2007

The chorus has been singing for months now: Bill Condon’s can’t-miss adaptation of Tom Eyen & Henry Krieger’s 25-year-old Broadway musical is roaring into theaters to save a lackluster fall. Well, the reviews are in, and after listening to the effusive praise, I’m ready to belt out the following showstopper: “I Ain’t Addin’ My Voice to This Choir, No How!” Condon scripted the screen adaptation of Chicago, and he’s a far more capable director than that picture’s Rob Marshall, yet he can’t quite crack the emotional core of this material’s fictionalization of the rise of the Supremes (here the Dreams) and Berry Gordy’s Motown, with an ineffective Beyoncé Knowles and a constipated Jamie Foxx standing in for Diana Ross and Gordy while Eddie Murphy regurgitates his SNL-era James Brown routine. The picture’s utter failure to capture the “Motown sound” is briefly lessened by American Idol loser Jennifer Hudson bellowing the crowd-pleasing “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” If only I could have crooned that one before slogging through this pretender.

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Dreamgirls's Web site:http://www.dreamgirlsmovie.com/

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[ 05/26 ] "A Natural Order," photographs by Lucas Foglia @ David Winton Bell Gallery

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[ 05/26 ] "2012 RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition" @ Rhode Island Convention Center

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Watch the trailer for Dreamgirls (QuickTime)

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