How can I not give this one 5 stars? I was honestly slightly shocked by how much I enjoyed it. Though I twice intended to go and see this when it opened in the West End, following its massive success on Broadway, even though the cast was different, I never got round to it; though I’ve seen the 1968 movie, maybe more than once, I thought my memories were vague. Let that segue to my only criticism here, get it out of the way first: Matthew Broderick is no Gene Wilder. I really thought I couldn’t remember a single thing of the ‘68 movie, but as soon as he started with the whole “my blue blankie!” bit … “I’m wet! I’m hysterical and I’m wet!” it all came back to me, and as fantastic as he is at the song and dance numbers, and fantastic as I’m sure he was on stage, he can’t compete with Wilder’s manic turn.

Aside from that, what can I say? Right from the opening aerial shot, the beautiful old-fashioned look of the thing, I was beaming. There are more great song and dance numbers than I remembered (I’ve listened to the cast recording plenty), and then of course there’s the great centrepiece of “Springtime” itself. Will Ferrell is hilarious, I had more out loud laughs than I thought possible, and technically, it’s virtually flawless. If only all movie musicals could be as fearless about being musical as this one.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 25th, 2007 at 8:52 pm in 5 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.