Hairspray Movie Review

If you come out with a comedy that enjoys cult status, chances are it has a future as a Broadway hit. It doesn't stop there though, after the Tony awards, it's time for to bring it right back to the big screen. It's a new trick developed by the industry to basically cash in on the same movie twice. It happened for The Producers and Phantom of the Opera and will most likely happen for the Wedding Singer and Legally Blonde. Here comes John Water's 1988 camp comedy Hairspray that gets the same musical makeover.

If you're not familiar with the work of John Waters, he's primarily known for his series of controversial films that we're usually too much for the general patron. One person who always had a role in his earlier work was childhood friend Divine who, though a transvestite, would play real women. One such character was Edna Turnblad, who is now played by John Travolta. I think everyone is caught up on Waters now, let's move on.

The adaptation of the Hairspray musical is a joy to watch. It has the music needed to please the stage fans while supplying the subtle raunchiness to please the John Waters fans, so everybody wins. Hairspray is the story of Tracy, a pudgy young girl who loves to dance and dreams of one day, doing that very thing on everyone's favorite dance program, "The Corny Collins Show". After becoming infatuated with an unfamiliar dancing style, she shows off her new moves and finally gets to live out her fantasy. Though ecstatic, she feels bad for her friends who are only welcome on Corny during "Negro Day" and decides to fight for them. I was also happy to see that they didn't stray from the 1988 films original message, one being racial equality and the other which is not letting the airbrushed model on a magazine make you ashamed of who you are. It can very difficult to be entertaining and at the same time have an enlightening message; Chuck and Larry couldn't do either.

At first, I didn't know how to feel about John Travolta playing the new Edna, it was such an unusual yet great choice. Despite the bizarre accent, every scene he did was hysterical and oddly endearing. Christopher Walkin has the honor of playing John Travolta's husband and gets another opportunity to show off his dance background. The best singing easily comes from Queen Latifah, who reminded me why she was nominated in Chicago. Other notable performances come from the beautiful, yet hard to spell, Michele Pfeiffer, James Marsden who shows that Wolverine isn't the only X-Man who can handle Broadway and High School Musical's Zac Efron who makes the transition from a popular singing kid who falls in love with an unpopular girl... to a popular singing kid who falls in love with an unpopular girl in the sixties. At least he's not being type cast. Then among all these grizzled veterans, is 18 year old Nikki Blonsky, whose only previous work was at Coldstone. I want to give utmost kudos to her performance which showed little fear and looked as if she'd been in the business as long as Amanda Bynes. Let's not forget another first time acting performance that won best actress last year.

Hairspray is a fun film with great music and despite the heavy messages involved (I swear, no pun intended), it manages to keep a carefree spirit. Unless your young kids are fairly perceptive to double entendres which would make you very bad parents, I wouldn't be too worried about bringing them along. If they ask questions about why Danny from Grease has put on some weight and now a woman, it might be good persuasion for why they shouldn't smoke in high school.

A