| CLUNKA-DUNK DUNK-A-THUNK : Susan Stroman's 'The Producers' [3?/10] |
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| Monday, 19 December 2005 | |
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[WARNING : REVIEW CONTAINS MILD 'LANGUAGE' AND DISRESPECTFUL ATTITUDE] Oh, dear. What a misbegotten mess - if you want a synopsis or a balanced analysis, look elsewhere. I walked out just after half time - feeling a touch guilty on my way to the exit - in favour of Christmas shopping on the chaotic streets of Newcastle city centre. Guilty because I had actually laughed... twice maybe three times. In seventy minutes. When I first saw Mel Brooks' non-musical 1968 original as an easily-impressed youngster, I remember thinking it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen, albeit from what was then a necessarily somewhat limited experience. In retrospect, I did well to get past halfway with this remake. How could anybody possibly give it a positive review? Getting home, I checked on Metacritic - no raves, mostly tepid reactions, a few outright slams. Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune hit the bullseye: The Producers on screen, as a musical, does not work. It is not very funny. It doesn't look right. It's depressing. Even those close to the production admit the main reason for making a big-screen adaptation of the Broadway musical - apart from money - was to record for posterity the award-winning performances of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. While Lane isn't bad in a hammy, sub-Zero Mostel way, Broderick seems all at sea, clutching scraps of Gene Wilder the same way his character (why is he called Leopold Bloom?!) grabs his 'comforter.' Posterity, and all those future generations, will surely be utterly baffled by The Producers' laborious shtick. This was made in 2005? Why are the songs so awful? Why didn't Mel Brooks direct it himself? He could hardly have done a worse job. Stroman, another Broadway transfer, doesn't even seem to realise that she's making a film, not just a record of the stage version. And the point of theatre is that it's transient, it changes every night. If you missed Olivier's Hamlet or Brando's Streetcar then tough. Why not just have Lane and company perform as usual on stage and stick a few cameras around the 'house', arbitrarily flicking between them every few minutes? Invite the public in - they'll provide a live "laugh track" so we know where the funny bits are supposed to be. Roger Bart as the waspishly epicene 'Carmen Ghia' is good value, but otherwise... Phhhft. Lifeless. Gag after gag after gag falls flat. Clunka-dunk dunk-a-thunk. It's been ages since Will Ferrell (as the comedy-Nazi playwright) was this tedious: why don't film-makers realise that he's useless in cameos? Not all Christmas releases can be King Kong, of course, but even so... Ladies and gentlemen, meet this year's turkey. Maybe fractionally preferable to Phantom of the Opera, but in the same grim ballpark. Chicago has a lot to answer for. There's a good reason why movie musicals died out. It's because people realised that they're nearly always shit. Neil Young 19th December, 2005 THE PRODUCERS : [3?/10] : USA 2005 : Susan STROMAN : 134 mins (BBFC timing) seen at Odeon cinema, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK), 19th December 2005 - press show |
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