Nancy’s Review of Burlesque

I am a huge fan of musicals, on stage and on screen. I was very excited to see Burlesque because I thought it had the potential to be great. Boy, was I disappointed. Not only did it lack flow but it was way too long. I looked at my cell phone for the time thinking it was almost over and it was actually only an hour into the two hours and fifteen minutes. Needless to say, I was antsy. The story lines that accompanied the musical numbers in the burlesque club were disjointed. There were a lot of aspects of the stories that were either unnecessary, unrealistic, boring, random, or a combination. I have to admit that Christina Aguilera did a good job with what she was given. I can see her going on to do more movies. However, her singing became irritating after a while because she did too many vocal runs and she over sang. I know those are her trademarks but they were still a bit much. Cher sang twice during the movie. She still sounds pretty good but, like many other things in this movie, her second song was unnecessary and random. The characters were inconsistent too. For example, Aguilera’s character, Ali, had a love interest named Jack. At the beginning, he was supposed to come off as sexy but he just seemed creepy. During the movie, he redeemed himself and seemed like a genuinely nice guy. But wait, not so fast. He turned into a complete jerk toward the end and I don’t think there is any girl who will agree with how Ali handled the situation. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who still plans to see the movie. But her reaction to his "mistakes" is not realistic at all for any self-respecting woman. Ali made so much progress during the movie transforming from a small town Iowa girl to the star of a burlesque show in Los Angeles who is living her dream, so her reaction to Jack was all wrong considering her personal growth. The best way to describe Burlesque is to say that it is a really, really long Christina Aguilera music video. If you aren’t a fan of Christina or Cher, then I don’t recommend this movie. If you are just looking for dancing and singing and you are not interested in the story, then I recommend it. You still might leave thinking it was a total waste of money but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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Have you seen Burlesque? What did you think of it? Do you plan on seeing it? Leave a comment below to let us know. Thanks!