Dreamgirls (2006)

Directed by Bill Condon. Starring Jennifer Hudson, Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles, Eddie Murphy, Anika Noni Rose, Danny Glover, Keith Robinson, Hinton Battle, Sharon Leal, Dawnn Lewis, Loretta Divine. [PG-13]

Disappointingly generic musical based on a Broadway production, which tells the story of a fictional R&B girl group in the 60s and 70s that encounters one clichéd success or setback after another. No expense was spared on the coiffing-and-costuming, and director Condon gives it all a glitzy polish, but the storytelling is so familiar and tedious that every time the contraption starts to get off the ground, it crashes back to Earth once the number ends. Foxx and Knowles are short on charisma and depth when playing, respectively, the group’s unscrupulous Svengali-esque record producer and the “star attraction” (to the eyes, if not the ears), but Murphy has more than a few electric moments as a James Brown-esque showman and womanizer, and Hudson lets loose with some powerful pipes as the story’s Florence Ballard-styled main attraction—she won a Supporting Actress Oscar almost solely based on her show-stopping musical moments. The second half is a real drag, and that’s not referring to all the hits the characters take as careers start to fall apart. Lots of tunes, but even though they’re sung with tremendous passion, the lyrics and arrangements have nothing on nearly any of the biggest singles recorded by the Supremes, the girl group that served as an obvious inspiration for these Dreamettes/Dreams. John Lithgow cameos; John Krasinski and Jaleel White have bit parts.

53/100