Ed's Review Dot Com

De Line Pictures

Cher, Christina Aguilera, Eric Dane, Cam Gigandet, Julianne Hough, Alan Cumming, Peter Gallagher, Kristen Bell, Stanley Tucci, Dianna Agron

Burlesque is the story of a waitress in a small Iowa town who is sick of her life. In her words, she looked at the lives of everyone in her town and found none that she wanted, so it’s off to Hollywood to follow her dream of being a dancer and a singer. But live in Tinseltown isn’t so easy, and finding work means one rejection after another. Ali (Christina Aguilara) is almost out of options when by accident she runs across a small club called “Burlesque” run by Tess (Cher) a retired dancer who is trying to keep running. With stars in her eyes, Ali enters and tries to find a job there. Tess is obviously in love with her co-conspirator Sean (Stanley Tucci) who is unfortunately into guys, and NOT with her ex-husband and partner Vince (Peter Gallagher) who stands against Tess on about everything. To further complicate things, the dancers lip-sync to classic singers while doing an old fashioned show without a pole or any real nudity, just suggestive dancing, but they all have issues that stand in the way of any form of greatness. Marcus (Eric Dane) is a rich real estate mogul who likes to hang out at the club, blow lots of money, and date the girls. But it appears Tess’ days are number as the club is facing a large balloon payment and has no way to pay the mortgage and is about to lose the club for good. Marcus wants to buy it, and offers her a lot of money, but Tess won’t take it, much to her ex-husbands chagrin, and he has some bad intentions for the choice property on the Sunset Strip.

Burlesque is a simple story. It’s been told many, many times before, and I think that’s what held this film up at the box office. Cher has a couple numbers that are vintage Cher, and excellent, and of course Christina is an amazing singer and plays the poor girl from a little town who had a big voice and makes it big in a hurry. This is her life story for crying out loud. It’s a very old story going back to the silent films and classics like A Star is Born or dozens of others. Actually it could be described as the PG-13 version of Showgirls which probably hurt it as well.

But this is a musical theater drama, and is not bad, (i.e. ok for older kids) and is a good story with redeeming qualities unlike the title would suggest. This is old time classic Burlesque, not a stripper story, and the music is excellent and the acting is pretty decent. Marcus is a bastard, and Sean is a very lovable queen. Tess is the bitchy dragon lady boss with a heart of gold inside, and Ali is the sweet little innocent girl from Iowa who everyone takes advantage of until she learns her way around to save the day in the end. Kristin Bell also appears as Nikki, the lead lip sync’r of the group who has so many issues and tries to torpedo Ali when Ali takes her place by turning off the music track which gives Ali a chance to really sing. Nikki’s part was pretty small, and I was a bit surprised that it wasn’t developed better, but I guess this is the Cristina and Cher show, so there’s not much time for any of the others to step up. But the songs are good, Cher and Christina are awesome singers and everyone is a great dancer. This looks and feels like one of those musicals from the 40’s that filled up the screen and it’s a big movie. I think I understand why it did not kick butt in the theaters with all the competition up against it over the holidays, but it’s definitely worth catching on Blu-Ray, especially if you have a large screen and a great sound system! This is a nice little film that looks very big on the screen. Give it a chance.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog