When I decided to go see Dreamgirls I knew there would be a lot of singing but the fact that the film itself was a musical made me all the more interested in seeing it. The film is adapted from the stage musical (that was adapted from a book) of the same name that debuted on Broadway on December 20th, 1981 and ran for four years. The stage musical is based on the careers of famous R & B groups such as The Supremes and follows the story of three young singing girls from Chicago (Detroit for the film) who make their way to the top and slowly dissolve the careers of each other as the troubles of fame and fortune come knocking.

In Detroit, Michigan in 1962, three young African American girls in a group called the Dreamettes enter a talent competition in a club. Effie (Jennifer Hudson, a rejected American Idol, now Academy Award winner for this film), Deena (Beyonce Knowles), and Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose) lose the competition, but a Cadillac Dealer, Curtis (Jamie Foxx), who has hopes of breaking into the music business, positions himself as their manager. He signs them to be backup singers for regional R & B star James “Thunder” Early (Eddie Murphy) after making a deal Jimmy’s manager, Marty (Danny Glover). They then begin to make their way to the top when Curtis starts his own record company and Effie’s brother, C.C. (Keith Robinson) becomes their head songwriter. When their first single fails, Curtis decides to pay the right people using payola and the group begins to make their way up the charts.

Dreamgirls is a very well balanced musical. When I say this I don’t mean that everything is in the right place and that everything flows the way it should, I do not mean that at all. The first act gets you very excited and hungry for more as the music gets your toes tapping, but the second act drags out as the groups’ troubles take a harsh turn and it almost takes a miserable, gilded tone. To put it simply, the first act looks flashy and plays itself big, loud, exciting, and full of warmth, but the second act feels flashy too, but drags itself out and tries too hard trying to make you feel sorry for the characters. This is not the fault of director Bill Condon (Director of Kinsey and writer of Oscar Winning Chicago), who also wrote the screenplay, because I liked almost everything I saw on screen with the exception of a few things, except for some of the things that were happening on screen. There wasn’t really much of anything Condon could do to the second act to make it better without going back and rewriting the second part of the book that the stage musical is adapted from as well as going back and changing the musical and making the songs of act two less whiney.

Beyonce Knowles has lost much of her presence on film is this movie. There isn’t really anything in particular that is appealing about her voice, it’s average and even in the second act when she is made lead singer of the group, you can see why the group began to fail. Throughout the film it’s tough to watch her on screen and in parts of the film you not only forget that she is up there, you can tell she almost looks bored.

I’ve never seen Anika Noni Rose in any film before, but there is nothing particulary special about her voice either. However, she can act and I’m surprised I haven’t seen her on screen before, I was very pleased with her performance during verbal scuffles between the group after Effie is kicked out.

Jennifer Hudson. Wow. Her performance is the reason I do not watch American Idol, because they always overlook talent and like the film, they recognize the average just for looking good. She has a beautiful, yet harsh, alto voice that brings so much life and color to the movie and her emotional solo in act two was the only thing that made it bearable. She deserves her Academy Award for best supporting actress though I believe she could have even been nominated as a lead character even though she had less of a chance at winning.

There isn’t anything wonderful about the other performances in the film, even Jamie Foxx who I was expecting more from, except Eddie Murphy. If we lay the cards down, we can clearly see he has not made a good film in a long time except for a few voice overs such as the donkey in Shrek. His character of James “Thunder” Early is loveable and when he sings and dances around you see an R & B star, not the highest grossing black comedian in Hollywood. His character is probably one of the strongest factors that makes act one so much fun. Unfortunately, he’s gone by act two.

Overall… the film is balanced, a great first act, a second to drag the rest of the film down. For this problem, I propose a solution. Wait a few weeks, go to Blockbuster or the netflix website and rent it. This way, you are free to turn up the volume as loud as you want for act one in your house, then jump almost every scene in act two until you get to Jennifer Hudson’s solo. After you finish the movie, you’re probably going to want to go back and watch the Eddie Murphy scenes a few times and download a few songs from the film online (Itunes has great quality for a small price).

Rated PG-13 for language, some sexuality and drug content.

Running time 131 minutes.