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CHICAGO Send This Review to a Friend
With energy and dazzle from start to finish, "Chicago" not only is a smash film musical that is grandly entertaining. It creatively advances the movie musical form to an extent not previously achieved. This is one for the new century, showing what can be done to inject fresh life into the genre. It isn't the Broadway show. "Chicago" has been dramatically reconceived strictly in film terms, which is what makes it so vibrant. As delightful as the Broadway production is, director and choreographer Rob Marshall has found a way to lift the work from stage confines onto the screen and come up with one of the best films of 2002.
What's so different? Marshall thoroughly integrates the musical numbers with the cynical tale of a murder trial, newspaper sensationalism and corruption in 1929 Chicago. There's no stopping for song or dance. The numbers, brilliantly conceived and executed in their own right, become part of the various situations by means of spinning them off from accused murderess Roxie Hart's mind. They relate in concept and setting to Roxie's dreams of stage stardom but always mesh with the specific moment at hand. The constant flow is smooth and persistently imaginative. Bob Fosse worked in this direction in his movie "All that Jazz," and Baz Lurhmann was after something similar in his overbearing, tasteless "Moulin Rouge." Marshall now succeeds with creativity, pizzazz and excellent taste.
Of course, form alone would not be enough. The casting is what also makes everything click so extraordinarily well. Renee Zellweger is the perfect Roxie as she manages to embody ruthlessness with vulnerability, humor with cynicism. As her rival Velma, Catherine Zeta-Jones is simply a knockout. Both Zellweger and Zeta-Jones do their own singing, as do other cast members, and they are a wow. Zellweger never looked so attractive, and Zeta-Jones, who has had musical experience, is an absolute stunner.
Richard Gere as the unscrupulous, hot-shot lawyer Billy Flynn gives the film a strong component of jaunty cynicism. He is thoroughly entertaining, particularly when he gets a chance to dance, and he looks better than ever. Queen Latifah as the tough Matron Morton ("If You're Good to Mama, Mama's Good to you"), who rules the prison that houses Roxie and Velma, gives the film further oomph, and John C. Reilly makes us care for the chump Amos, hopelessly in love with two-timing Roxie. He gets to put over in his own intimate movie terms the "Mr. Cellophane" number that Joel Grey did so well on stage. Christine Baranski is amusing as the sob sister journalist Mary Sunshine.
Fosse's stage choreography has given way to Marshall's conceptions, but the Kander and Ebb score remains at the heart of it all, although not every number from the stage version is included. (The current Broadway production is itself a re-working of Fosse's 1975 original, which was a re-incarnation of previous stage and film productions.) Bill Condon's screenplay is geared to fit the concept of keeping the film on a fast-moving track and accenting the dark comedy edge, and cinematographer Dion Beebe helps make the film an eyeful, as does costume designer Colleen Atwood with the entertaining period dress.
There may be Broadway purists who would feel happier if the stage production were practically filmed as is. But that wouldn't really be a movie musical. This one is--a dazzling achievement that gives a whole new lift to the genre and may pave the way for the musical to make still another comeback. A Miramax release
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