A cabaret-styled musical about small-town girl Ali (Christina Aguilera), who ventures to Los Angeles and finds her place in a neo-burlesque club run by Tess (Cher), a former dancer.
The Burlesque Lounge has its best days behind it. Tess struggles to keep the aging theatre alive in the face of distracted dancers and a threat from a wealthy businessman's quest to buy the spot. Ali, hired by Tess as a waitress, escapes a hollow past and quickly falls in love with the art of burlesque. The club's fortune changes when Ali's booming voice is discovered and makes her the main attraction...
Twelve-year-old girls (or your inner twelve-year-old girl) should squeal with delight at this glossy assemblage of showbiz clichés, but everyone else will be snoozing by the end of its unearned two-hour running time.
De-skankified to the point where she could've only just graduated from The Mickey Mouse Club, blonde warbler Christina Aguilera relies principally on her incongruously huge voice to make an impression here. The plot has her acting out familiar tropes from every aspiring dancer/singer/arm-wrestler movie ever made as she attempts to make in the big bad world of... this one burlesque club in LA.
Critics often cite an actor's 'stillness' as evidence of dramatic ability. The alarmingly plastic surgery-ified Cher, with her face looking like a condom stretched over a beach umbrella, gives a performance here as the club owner that's not so much 'still' as 'immobile'. I found myself struggling to find evidence that she wasn't simply wheeled in on a vertical stretcher, à la Hannibal Lecter, to perform her scenes.
As a lifelong fan/defender of infamous film director/mad genius Paul Verhoeven (Robocop; Starship Troopers; Basic Instinct), I am obligated to revere his 1995 super-bomb/instant camp classic Showgirls, which casts an ominous shadow over Burlesque. From the scenes where the star-struck Aguilera earnestly emulates dance moves from the floor to the All About Eve-lite subplot involving a dance rival (played with gusto by the usually-much-nicer Kristen Bell), Showgirls was all over this movie.
But Burlesque critically fails to reach the giddy batshit-crazy highs that buoyed Verhoeven's crapsterpiece, and is content to merely gloss up a oft-told story with 'tastefully' concealed T & A, shaken with intensity on stage.
By Dominic Corry, Flicks.co.nz
I loved this movie! it would be good to watch with your mum and friends because its quite a girly movie!
Loved it so much for the powerful voice of christina and the crazy slightly sugestive dancing. Dont go for the story line or chers terrible acting watch for the experience!!
The singing and dancing were great story line ok but cher and christina rock
Very predictable but a great watch, thought chers solo was a little out of place mid movie. Two huge voices make a great musical & the skimpy outfits will keep the guys watching the whole flick. 4 1/2 Stars!
Burlesque shows Cher and Christina Aguilera being all that they can be, and that's more than enough.
Intentionally or not, it might be the comedy of the year. The music and dance are thrilling and the costumes saucy enough to satisfy, but the whole is so camp and clichéd that it must be deliberate. Right?
Like the dancers on Sunset Boulevard, Burlesque knuckles down, scrubs up, and makes the goddamn best of things
Women will love this, and men won't mind the eye candy either, so it looks like this Screen Gems release can't help becoming a hit.
Once again, Bob Fosse's "Cabaret" haunts the stage with derbies and splayed legs, but with results that are strictly Sally Bowdlerized.
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Thursday, 13th Jan 2011.
Release date: January 13th 2011.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
