In 1920s Chicago, Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) shoots and kills her lover (Dominic West). She lands in prison but, with the help of shady lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere),she begins to enjoy her notoriety and thrive on the publicity. Another inmate, Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones) begins to get very jealous of all this...

Adaptation of the hit Broadway musical is actually better than the stage version. The story is more coherent and the cast gives their all to the material. Also, the songs flow right into the story--in some musicals the story stops short to make room for the songs--here they just blend together perfectly. Also some of the song and dance numbers just had my audience applauding them--they're that well done!

The acting is universally good--Zeta-Jones (totally covering her Scottish accent) is just great as Kelly; Zellweger is good as Roxie (but she pouted a little too much for my taste) and Gere is obviously having a great old time as Flynn (and he sings and dances pretty well!). And Queen Latifah, Taye Diggs and Dominic West are great in supporting roles.

I almost gave this a 10...but the ending left me a bit cold. That aside, this is a rarity--a good solid Hollywood adaptation of a stage musical. Worth catching.

I've been watching a few Hollywood musicals as of late, and enjoying them to one degree or another (MAMMA MIA, SWEENEY TODD and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA being three of the most recent). I decided to catch up on the Oscar-winning CHICAGO to see how it held up against them, and...

I discovered that this is a nonsensical, overblown mess of a film. It's filled with actors and actresses I find it very easy to dislike - Catherine Zeta Jones, Richard Gere - and a leading performance from without a doubt the most irritating personality in modern-day cinema, Renee Zellweger, delivering yet another spin on her supposedly 'cutesy' role in BRIDGET JONES' DIARY; is there nothing else she knows how to do?

CHICAGO boasts a couple of decent song 'n' dance numbers and the rest is just a dreary mess. The costume designers went out of their way to make this as sleazy a film as possible, with all the singers and dancers dressed like hookers throughout and acres of bare flesh on show; at least somebody like Verhoeven made his sexual odyssey, SHOWGIRLS, without pretension while this strives to be art.

It isn't; it's abominable: boring, stupid and utterly without merit, by far the worst musical I've ever had the misfortune of sitting through.

In 1924, Cook County (Chicago) had two trials of women who killed their lovers. Both Beaulah Annan and Belva Gaertner inexplicably were found innocent--and the media loved it. As a result, in 1927, a silent fictionalized movie called "Chicago" debuted. Then, in 1942, Ginger Rogers starred in a remake called "Roxie Hart". In the mid-1970s, a musical version of "Roxie Hart" debuted on Broadway. And, in 2002, the filmed version of the 70s musical was released. Now that is a long and interesting pedigree! As for the film, it's an interesting melange. The songs are great and the film is very impressive...yet it's so incredibly anachronistic that it made my brain hurt. Now some of this I could understand--it was more like a filmed version of the play than most musicals. But why they chose to have ridiculously modern outfits and backup dancers confused me. Why did Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renée Zellweger and Richard Gere dress and look like they were from the 1920s--yet the rest of the dancers look right off the stage of Broadway circa 2002?! The fishnet stockings, 2002 hairstyles and the like really confused the crap out of me--especially since I am a history teacher.

Still, I must point out the singing and songs were great and the story was a huge improvement over the Ginger Rogers film (which was wretched). It was well made and I was particularly impressed by Zeta-Jones (who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for it),Gere and John C. Reilly. They really worked their butts off and impressed me. So, because so much was right about this film I certainly recommend it. It's just too bad they didn't get the details right or even try when it came to all the minor characters and costumes. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.