Rating: 
Summary: The most overrated movie since "Titanic"...
Review: A few years from now, the same people who recommended "Chicago" to me recently will be claiming to not have enjoyed it. It's that type of movie -- like an '80s hairstyle you claim to have never favored, "Chicago" is a flash in the pan. I can't honestly review this movie without the following disclaminer: the music did nothing for me. Musicals like "Moulin Rouge" or even "Grease", whose plots are similarly silly, can transport me because I like the music. This one did nothing for me, both because the plot is ludicrous and the music isn't to my taste.I will credit the movie with some inspired choreography -- the sequence where Renee Zellweger and the journalists act as marionnettes to slick Billy Flynn's manipulations is clever and appealing, and a few of the jailhouse fantasy sequences are well done. Catharine Zeta-Jones has a good jazz voice, but she is a limited actress: compare her performance here with the omnipresent Vorizon cell phone ads, and there is no difference in her delivery: same throaty voice, flick of the neck, cocked eyebrow. Her accent here veers from Midwestern to European. Renee Zellweger is a decent actress in a limited role; if she upsets Nicole Kidman or Julianne Moore for the Oscar, it will be tribute to Hollywood's abyssmal lack of fairness. What particularly irked me about this movie was that it takes a statistical anomoly -- celebrities buying their freedom -- and presents it as commonplace. It is actually far more common for an innocent person to go to prison than for someone to be able to afford a slick defense attorney to tinker with evidence and contaminate the jury pool. This might seem a minor quibble, but since this is the only major plot point, and is the subject of several song and dance sequences, it is worth noting. Elsewhere, tired cliches about show business abound and the woman are portrayed are manipulative and violent. All in all, the movie abounds in cliches and cultural stereotypes: women are shallow and vain, lawyers are deceitful and money hungry, working class people are dim-witted and naive. All in all, this is a second class effort. I'm crossing my fingers that something -- anything -- will upset this trifle on Oscar night.
Rating:
Summary: about this movie......
Review: The story of this movie is actually talking about the murder case of the actress but the film maker tried to package the movie with less boring method by adding music, singing and some jokes to it. I find that it is just another ordinary movie if the story of the movie concentrated on the trials of the murder case of the actress. These oridinary movie could be easily found in serial dramas(Cops dramas) in any part of the world.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Film of 2002.
Review: Every once in a while an unknown director comes along who serves notice of extraordinary talent, such as Orson Welles with "Citizen Kane" or Francis Ford Coppola with "The Godfather." It's hard to say how Rob Marshall's career will turn out, but he serves notice with "Chicago" that his name can be mentioned without embarrassment in the same sentence as Welles' and Coppola's. In a time when movie musicals are a nearly moribund art form, "Chicago" is one of the very few ever made that approaches the excitement and immediacy of a musical live on stage. Movie musicals notoriously offer myriad pitfalls for bathos, usually involving stars who can't sing or dance or directors who don't know how to stage a musical number. Marshall, a choreographer by training, wrings every inherent drop of excitement and pizzazz from every number, and he takes care to hire stars who CAN sing and dance--most notably Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones, both perfect for a musical set in the Jazz Age. They look like Clara Bow and Louise Brooks reborn, they sing wonderfully, they dance with elegance and panache, and they have more than enough sexiness and charisma to be proclaimed the "It Girls" for this generation. And what characters they get to play: Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, two murderesses sharing the same unctuous lawyer (Billy Flynn, played by Richard Gere) and the same uncanny instincts for survival and publicity. Coming less than a decade after the O.J. Simpson trial and in the midst of the "Reality TV" craze, this smart, funny, scaldingly cynical film has much of importance to say about the vicious triviality of American celebrity culture. If you can take your eyes off Zellweger and Zeta-Jones--and that is, admittedly, very hard--you will note the abundant excellence of Queen Latifah, as venal jailhouse matron "Mama" Morton, and John C. Reilly--perhaps this generation's finest character actor, and with an unexpectedly lovely singing voice--as Zellweger's sad-sack hubby, Amos. As for Richard Gere, much has been made in the press of his being snubbed by Oscar. No one besides Gere could have made the brazen dishonesty of Billy Flynn so engaging, and he acquits himself well in his song-and-dance numbers. But whereas Gere is very good and memorable, the others--Zellweger, Zeta-Jones, Latifah and Reilly--are mesmerizing and unforgettable.
Rating: 
Summary: Good performances
Review: I really like Catherine Zeta-Jones and she does an amazing job in this film. I was amazed at how good a voice she has not to mention her amazing dancing ability. The same can be said for Gere and Zellweger. John C. Reilly plays the biscuithead husband exceptionally well and Queen Latifah is really good as Big Mama, her solo scene in a gold lame dress brings new definition to the word: decollatage!
Rating:
Summary: Sexy, Sultry, and Strong!
Review: The best overall musical show experience I have had in years. I can't wait for the DVD so I can watch it over and over! Zeta-Jones smolders and the whole cast is wonderful. The music is just fantastic from beginning to end.
Rating:
Summary: Simply the BEST!!!
Review: This was, by far, the most entertaining musical I have ever seen. I have been a fan of the "old" musicals since I can remember and this one made it directly to the top of my list. In my opinion, beginning with the exceptional selection of the actors/actresses all the way down to the imaginative melange of the song and dance numbers (superbly choreographed, by the way) into the storyline, this movie will most likely become a classic. Even if you aren't a fan of this type of movie, it's definitely worth the trip (and price). I can't say enough about it.
Rating:
Summary: The Songs Are The Best Part
Review: Who would ever thought that Chicago would make a great movie. With an amazing cast this movie is very enjoyable. With such songs as When Your Good To Mama, All That Jazz, Cell Block Tango, and We Both Reached For The Gun, this movie should be seen by everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous Flash
Review: Chicago is a musical from which other musicals should be molded! Not since the Streisand and Andrews genre of musicals have I been so entertained. The story of women wronged and taking revenge on countless men, at a time when women had barely gained the right to vote is easy to swallow under the careful spell cast by this powerful A-list ensemble of actors.
The music, costumes and choreography nearly overshadow the exceptional acting. But they also leave you wanting more, more, more!
Rating:
Summary: Big, bigger, biggest. I mean, smallest
Review: People may call this the movie of the year.
BUT I wouldn't. The music is big and rhythmic and powerful.
BUT it does not swing like the 30s band sounds it builds on. The dancing is flashy.
BUT is it good? The girls are everywhere and designed to stimulate.
BUT Mary Louise Parker and Janel Moloney on "The West Wing" are sexier just standing there than the two stars and the chorus babes put together. The acting is on a grand scale.
BUT I somehow cared about none of the characters. ... The cinematography and set design and colors are terrific.
BUT ROAD TO PERDITION, QUIET AMERICAN, GOSFORD PARK did that better. The movie is creativity incarnate.
BUT at its core, empty.es as duo. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title
Rating:
Summary: "In this town, murder's a form of entertainment..."
Review: and entertainment is plentiful, but there just aren't enough stars for the marvelous, "Chicago". Just as poet Carl Sandburg immortalized the raw power and audacity of the city in his poem nearly 100 years ago ("Chicago, by Sandburg, 1914), so do the creators of the film version of Chicago...Fosse for his brilliance years ago, and a production team who bring it burning incandescent to the big screen. Chicago takes you on a musical experience that makes 2001's lesser film, "Moulin Rouge", pale by comparison. Direction is strong by newcomer Rob Marshall, who "wows" us with the film's energy. Sets, camerawork, editing, visualization and pace are superb. Captured for this film, (as in so many others where the music stands completely on its own) are the talents of music director Danny Elfman. A genius at musical transition, Elfman lets the score soar, while mixing new life into its vocals, even with lesser singing talents such as Gere and Zellwegger. The cast was well prepared vocally, and the choreography blinds you. Lights, camera angles, sets and costumes blend into the showcase rather than eclipse it. Star talent is plentiful -- there is too much for one film! Queen Latifah, John C. Reilly and Catherine Zeta-Jones (as vixen, Velma) play to type strongly and vocalize beautifully. Zeta Jones is a marvelous dancer, and her beauty quite takes your breath away. This is Richard Gere's best performance (by far!) of a long and somewhat "wooden" career. Glinting, slick, manipulative -- he's truly the "puppeteer" of the script. His courtroom tapdance, the "Cell Block Tango" and Latifah's bawdy solo, "When You're Good to Mama" are the highlights of the show, for me. We even get glimpses of greatness in minor roles with virtual cameos by stage and screen stars Christine Baranski, Colm Feore, Taye Diggs and viperous Lucy Liu. But NOTHING quite prepares you for Zellwegger. There's a palpable charisma about her onscreen; the sort of light from within that Monroe had, and, indeed her solo, "Roxie Hart" is reminiscent of Monroe. We've loved Renee when "he had her at hello", she showed us her flair for black comedy as "Nurse Betty", and her talent for romantic farce as Bridget, but she sets the screen on fire in this film. She's equally at home with anger, awe, naivete, chutzpah and misery in "Chicago". The camera loves her, polishes her, allows her to outvamp Zeta-Jones in the closing act. She may not win an Oscar, because the competition is so fierce, but she will ever be associated with a brilliant film turn as Roxie. "Chicago" is, without a doubt, the best film of the year, and potentially the best musical ever brought to the big screen. Thanks to this 21st century masterpiece, Chicago is still... "singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning"
--Sandburg, 1914
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