Dreamgirls - 4

I tend not to like musicals in general (I found Chicago and Rent painful to watch). A good enough story can make the songs that seem out of place somehow come alive (The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and Moulin Rouge! seem to work). This film starts out well, but then gets fragmented by moving fast in montage mode only to slow down again focusing on different characters. While a lot of the songs are really good, with a progression from classic Motown to R&B to Disco, the story seems somewhat contrived. Since the songs come first, the attempt was made to pass good singing off as good acting, in the case of Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Hudson. Eddie Murphy seemed miscast, while Jamie Foxx and Danny Glover weren't given roles that could work up to their potential. This might be another case of the soundtrack being the main production.