The Case for Hair Product

I went to the film based on the musical based on the film of Hairspray with a wee bit of trepidation. It was a musical for a start, and I loved the original Hairspray, populated as it was with Ricki Lake, Divine, Deborah Harry and Sonny Bono and its general insanity and mild subversiveness. I was unsure quite how a more mainstream musical would pan out, despite a cameo by Ricki Lake and others involved in the original, but I decided to find out.

It started off perkily enough. And stayed that way. Afterwards, someone related to me that they found the lead characters of Tracey and Link fairly annoying, and I have to admit, I thought exactly the same thing. Something tells me that the writers did too, because their stories kind of take a back seat after the first half hour or so, as the "ladies" take over. Michelle Pfeiffer (her again?) takes on another evil cow role with relish, this time taking the opportunity to exercise her vocal chords as she did in Fabulous Baker Boys and Grease 2. Queen Latifah is always infinitely watchable (well, in my opinion anyway), no matter what rubbish she happens to appear in. And then there is John Travolta as Tracey's mother Edna, playing a woman "straight" (as it were) and well, which (for me) kind of misses the original point of having an outrageous drag queen playing the role.

The major events of the original movie are there, though some of the minor ones (like the visit to Hefty Hideaway) are brought in purely as an excuse for an "amusing" song and dance routine and then quickly forgotten. The songs are mostly perky, the odd amusing lyric hidden amongst the warbling, though their frequency increases as the movie goes on and the "cuteness" factor edges towards the irritating.

And for some reason, that is all I have to say. The film is what it is: definitely flawed, but considering the subject matter and the whole tone of the movie, you have to forgive the ridiculous plot and the fairly two dimensional politics.

But I will point out that the awesome Allison Janney is in there and, despite her brief screen time, is the funniest thing in the movie. And she doesn't sing. Brilliant!

Verdict: Using fractions based on the "year the film is set" over the "year the film was made", 60 out of 107, whereas the original was 60 out of 88