While most kids will enjoy this modern take on the 1977 broadway musical, adults will cringe at the painful cliches throughout. The audience no longer has any sympathy or desire for these kids to “move on up” since their lives are seemingly not that bad. It fails to capture the distress of the original.
Almost everyone is caught acting, except for Jamie Foxx, who is the only entertaining part of this movie. Cameron Diaz may be the lowlight, as it feels like at any moment she’s going to stop yelling, smile, and say “Just kidding!”
While the music is catchy, most of the new songs don’t fit in with the originals. And none of them are upbeat, which helps mesh them all together as unmemorable for the audience.
Although we get to see the pleasing development of Foxx’s character, we can no longer take the exploited cloyingness of Quvenzhane Wallis.
Even though I can’t say that I hate this movie, I don’t want something that’s too easy to like either.
The Twizard 