Having seen Jennifer Holliday in the revival of the musical about four years ago in Atlanta, I certainly had to lower my expectations of Hudson's performance because anyone who has seen Holliday live or clips of her on youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC_u_q-iND0 knows that it would take a pretty miraculous performance to even come close.With that said, I will say that while Ms. Hudson proved that she can sing loud, she also proved that she has about as much acting talent as Beyonce, can sing only in one key (the key of loud as hell), and that she never at any point connected with the role she has been so critically acclaimed for. The first song the trio performed in the early talent show was the only time I was impressed with her. Her version of "And I Am Telling You" sounds nice as long as you don't have to watch her lip synch it. Then when she went into "I am Changing", I really wanted to get up and slap her face for butchering that song. She sang with about as much emotional connection as a wet rag. Painful to watch because it was so awful. Would you believe people in the theatre actually clapped for this mess? Just goes to show that we like what we the media and Oprah tell us we should like.
Thank you Lord for putting Eddie Murphy in the movie. Without him this would have been the most boring 2 hours of my life. He deserves every ounce of recognition he is receiving and then some. He totally invested himself in the role and it showed.
Anika Noni Rose and the rest of the players were just there. Can't really say that they were bad or good because you don't really have enough material to draw from.
No one really talks about Jamie Foxx's "Curtis" but I think he did a great job of conveying through his acting what was totally lacking in the script. He played "bad" very well and though you never really see or get the setup for most of his shenanigans, he did manage to make me feel like he had done something villainous (though I only knew what it was from having seen the real musical). Quite honestly, his only crime was taking Deena for granted because all the other things he ends up accused were were things he had to do in order to get the group out to the masses. He didn't do anything that I'm sure Matthew Knowles hasn't done for his daughter or Destiny's Child for that matter.
And finally, Beyonce... I dont think she is a great actress but in this case she did show us why she is the best at what she does do well and that is performing. For the first hour of the movie you really don't notice her because she has very few lines but once she becomes Deena...WATCH OUT! Deena's perfomance alone made the movie bearable. Beyonce said she studied Diana Ross and you can see without question that she did. At no point did I feel like I as watching Beyonce or Sasha for that matter but I could have sworn The Boss Miss Ross was up there. From the hand motions to the eyes, Beyonce had that woman down pat which leads me to believe that she can act but she CANNOT speak well. By no means is she articulate and if she wants to be taken seriously as an actress, she will have to work on that.Overall the movie was just like much of what is released in film, television and music today. It was geared toward a younger and far less cerebral crowd who won't care about characters with depth or actor investment in the role. Condon played on the fact that a lot of this audience would be there to "star gaze" and not for an emotional journey that might actually whisper to any of the social, economic and political injustices that the musical Dreamgirls wailed on (via the magical performance of one, now very over-looked diva, named Jennifer Holliday.
