Rating: 
Summary: Gag me with a swizzle stick!
Review: I hate musicals being made into movies. Song after song after song that has no relevance! It makes me nutty.
But I'm not even going to go there, because even without the annoyingly catchy little songs that will never leave your head, "Chicago" would have been a horrible waste of film and my time. The best character in the entire movie was "Mr. Cellophane", poor guy. I felt so sorry for him. And yet we are meant to sympathize with Roxie, that horrible, spoiled, little twit that treats him like trash? I think not. I wanted to see her hanged!
This review is, admittedly, not meant to be helpful. I just wanted to help lower the four and a half star average costumer rating this bomb currently holds to something it deserves. This is also a lovely little chance for me to spew feelings that build inside me, and make them known to the whole world without breaking a sweat!
Don't let the academy fool you; 99% of movies made in 2002 were better than this one.
Rating:
Summary: This Movie was Wretched.
Review: Wow. I had heard so much about this movie and all I can say is...don't believe the hype. It was terrible. Renee Zellweger is a pasty faced wanna-be, and Richard Gere is just...ick. Good God...who told this man he could sing and dance let alone act?
The only saving grace of this movie if Queen Latifah, and that's only because she's mildly humerous.
Catherine Zeta Jones was alright, but she didn't deserve and Oscar...and neither did this over rated piece of tripe.
The movie is dark, depressing, and lacking any originality. I hated this movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Has the Musical genre finally come back?
Review: Permit me 2 be a bit historic. Thanks 2 big-budget-muliti-length musical overkill 1968-73 with non-singing actors in leading roles - the musical genre KILLED itself by the mid 70s...This is 2003 and recently we have experienced Evita, Little Voice, Moulin Rouge and NOW - Chicago. The film has borrowed a lot in style from Bob Fosse`s CABARET 1972. There are killer moments such as Cell-Block Tango and Roxy`s Press Conferance. BUT; to put Catherine and Renee in high profiled musical roles has its short comings. Cathy may have played the West End a decade ago, but her high kicks simply isn`t enough. She can be played down by any number of talented musical stars in Europe and the US. Renee? She is NOT a sexpot! Period! She tries valiantly and has her moments; but it really should have been a Marilyn Monroe-type. Critics hail this as the biggest thing! Have they gone mad? Have dare they compare this with the MGM greats 1939-1958, Busby Berkeley, Judy Garland, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Bob Fosse, Barbra Streisand and the Minnellis? These products, artists and creators are of legendary fame and DESERVEDLY so... Cbicago IS IMPORTANT, and of good work. But a masterpiece? The only reason THE PIANIST(about horrors during World War II) lost at the Academy Awards was the times... The Iraque-"crisis". Naturally a musical was rewarded and not the horrors of a war...This is how it has always been! People don`t want 2 sorrows of war when their in the midst of it. By do u think musicals flourished in the 30s(th Depression), the 40s(The World War 2) and 60s?(Vietnam)???? Chicago is a satiricial product and has important statements; but PLEASE let us have REAL musical stars in these films. PLEASE!
Rating:
Summary: Disjointed, uninteresting, and a single note theme!
Review: I saw the original Broadway play when it first appeared years ago. It was a bore then and it's a bore now. How Queen Latifah got nominated, I'll never know, then again the same applies to Zeta-Jones. Richard Gere cannot sing. The story is disjointed, uninteresting (unless perhaps you're an adolescent), and a single noted theme. The ONLY reason it was nominated for any awards was the big name cast, politics, and studio sales pitches. Note: it's hard not to compare it to the superb "Victor/Victoria" or the intense but average "All That Jazz". There is no comparison really. "Chicago" is not jazzy at all. By the way, I didn't spend my hard-earned money on a theatre ticket. My friend rented it and I participated in his boredom!
Rating: 
Summary: The perfect movie musical
Review: I hated Moulin Rouge and wasn't exactly excited to see Chicago. What a great surprise it was that Chicago was not only good, but great! The visuals are stunning and flashy without being tacky and the singing talents of the entire cast is surprisingly top-notch. With a quick pace and a wonderful collection of mostly egocentric characters, Chicago is a can't miss example of what musicals are all about.
Rating:
Summary: simply horrendous
Review: I am halfway the film and it has been painful. Obviously Fosse was a dancer so the lyrics are far from great. The tunes are repetitive and there is NO DANCING. The roles acted by famous stars are lacking... I have seen these people act better in other movies. As you may suspect from the number of "used and new" of the DVDs listed here, this is a movie that had a lot of publicity that it did not deserve.
Rating: 
Summary: Where's the Dancing?
Review: While it's great to see that -- with "Moulin Rouge" and now "Chicago" -- Hollywood is trying to bring back musicals, I wish they would include some dancing. Fred Astaire used to insist that the camera shoot him full length. Most of the other great film dancers did, too. But here, instead of dancing -- instead of Bob Fosse -- we get a lot of actors in various postures, and constant cutting by the director. It's like shooting a Shakespeare soliloqy: (wide shot) "To be" (close-up) "or" (medium tilt from Hamlet's shoes) "not to be..." That wouldn't allow much scope for acting. And "Chicago" doesn't display much dancing.
Rating:
Summary: Chicago Rocks
Review: I am going to get say to simplely. This is a great musical, that won 6 Acadmeny awards. By the second time, or the first with the subtiles, you will be singing along. This about a murderess, well mostly two murderess. They are both in CHICAGO. They on Muderess Row, in the Cook Country Jail. They are Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart. Velma works on the stage. Roxie dreams about it. Whenever, she can't deal with something, she dreams about acts on the stage. Roxie shot and killed a man she was sleeping with who was supposed to get her a job as a singer/dancer, but didn't. Velma was at the Hotel Circeo and caught her husband and her sister fooling around. Queen Latifah plays Mama, the women who runs the jail. Richard Gere plays Billy Flynn, the slick lawyer of Roxie and Velma.
Rating:
Summary: They had it coming?
Review: So far there's over 625 reviews at Amazon, mostly intelligent, a few a wee bit odd, so I thought another strange one couldn't hurt. Why do we care about the characters? The four main ones are a sleazeball lawyer, played by Richard Gere, a double murdereress played by a sexy Zeta, a single murderess played by Renee ( If you want to nitpick Renee's a bit too skinny for a part that would have fitted Marilyn Monroe or Rita Hayworth ) and her chump of a cuckolded husband, played by John C Riley. The answer is we don't. If any of these people were to really elicit our sympathy, if we were convinced this was a 'real drama', about real people, only the worst of cynics could stomach it. It's a comic book. A grade A+ comic book, but not to be taken to heart. So we can relax and thoroughly enjoy the song and dance because they're not murderers, they're "vixens."
Get it? Did Bob Fosse die during the rehersals for the show on Broadway or shortly thereafter? No matter, decades later it still has a bit of the master's touch. Fosse was easily the greatest Jazz choreographer ever. The trick here is to keep the audience detatched from the one dimensional characters, as in any good comic book (Can you say "The Quick and The Dead" ). Director Marshall achieves this by following Fosse's formula of 'breaking the fourth wall' i.e; the song and dance numbers Do NOT take place 'within' the story. The actors do NOT break into song. They stop the action and place us in a stylized theater, outside the realism of the film's narrative. THEN they sing and dance. The only exception being the final number--which takes place on stage! So it's still safe enough to be away from 'real life' and operatic enough to engage the joy of the audience. Fosse used this device when he directed Liza Minelli and Michael York in " Cabaret " (an easy 5 stars) and his very best musical, the autobiographical " All That Jazz " (An easy 10 stars!) Though Marshall ain't Fosse, he does a commendable job; the pace never slackens and the characters are not deep enough to interfere with the Jazz. Remember, the blood is fake and they're not really murderers. They're vixens.
Rating:
Summary: A Very Snazzy Musical
Review: I rented the DVD for this movie knowing relatively little about it. I had presumed that it would be a lot like "Cabaret" with musical numbers centered in a night club with a story that takes place outside of the night club. I was surprized to discover that the musical numbers popped up all through the movie irregardless of the location. When I saw a choreographied song and dance emerge in the county jail, I knew that this was a different musical than what I had expected. Once I adjusted my perceptions, I found this a very enjoyable movie. There is much to applaud in "Chicago" beginning with the acting. My daughter told me she read that everyone did their own singing which surprized me. I had not thought of Richard Gere as a song and dance man but he did a very credible job. All of the numbers were great even though there were a lot of "amateurs" singing. I don't want to short change the singers but I think the real greatness to the numbers comes from the choreography, the directing, the costumes, the music and how well the songs fit right into the story. Indeed, most of the songs amplified the story. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure this would have been much of a movie without the music (although that's true about most musicals). But with the music, it is a great tale of manipulation of public opinion. It may be a bit cynical but that doesn't make it any the less enjoyable.
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