Strong Hold
Sometimes, somebody in Hollywood rolls the dice.
A studio buys a big-hit stage musical and tries to "improve" on it, moving it outdoors, adding tunes. It does a little stunt casting, putting John Travolta in a dress and a fat suit. It pairs him with old hoofer Christopher Walken for a Fred-and-Ginger moment.
It casts an unknown in the lead and pulls a leading man off a cable TV hit for kids. Somebody thinks, "Wouldn't Michelle Pfieffer have made a swell Cruella De Vil?" Somebody else guesses that James "X-Men" Marsden can play a singing, dancing 1960s teen dance-party TV-show host.
And then that studio throws the finished product out there, to sink or swim where no musical since "Grease" has floated: Summer.
Almost every gamble pays off with New Line's "Hairspray," a free-spirited, freewheeling romp based on the 2002 stage musical that was based on John Waters' edgy but family-friendly 1988 comedy.
Travolta shakes a leg and delivers laughs. The unknown, Nikki Blonsky — starring as Tracy Turnblad, plump but proud and racially tolerant ahead of her time — holds up her end. The "High School Musical" boy, Zac Efron, makes like a matinee idol and scores.
Oh, and as singer/TV hostess/reluctant civil-rights agitator Motormouth Maybelle, Queen Latifah just kills. The "Chicago" star all but walks off with a musical that gives her only a couple of numbers, a musical that doesn't have a bad tune or bad performance in it.
It's 1962 in Waters' hometown of Baltimore — pre-integration, pre-British Invasion, girl-group "Wall of Sound" Baltimore. Tracy endures the fat-girl put-downs of the popular, skinny white girls in her semi-integrated school because she knows, deep inside, that she's special. She has talent.
If only she could Ronnie Specter "Whoa-oh-oh" her way onto Corny Collins' TV show with "the nicest (whitest) kids in town," she'd show 'em. She might even win "Miss Teenage Hairspray." And she would land her dreamboat, Linc Larkin (Efron).
When Tracy croons "I know there's a place where I be-loooong," well, it's enough to make you believe. It's enough to make you forget "Dreamgirls."
Perky Penny (Amanda Bynes) is who Tracy shares her dreams with. Mother Edna (Travolta) is so fat and so ashamed of it that she won't listen to Tracy's dreams. Dad (Walken), on the other hand, says "Go for it."
Standing in her way: the sneering, leering and loose (when she needs to be) lady who runs WYZT-TV, Velma Von Tussle (Pfeiffer). She's a former beauty queen who runs Corny's show for the benefit of her daughter, and she won't have "some white whale" come in and wreck it.
Which is exactly what Tracy does. She has been in detention with "the colored kids," who have their own "Negro Day" once a month on Corny's show, hosted by Motormouth Maybelle. Tracy digs their moves. She wows Corny Collins with them. And getting on the show is just the start.
"I wish every day was Negro Day!"
Prompting the hairspray tycoon (Paul Dooley) to bellow, "I want that chubby communist off that show!"
But they can't keep Tracy or the other plus-size girls down, just as they can't crush dreams, kill rock 'n' roll or stop integration: "It's the future."
Blonsky is as bubbly as can be, never allowing Tracy a down moment. Latifah carries "Big, Blonde and Beautiful" and "I Know Where I've Been" as if she knows this is the role she was born to play. As the lithe and ever-grinning Corny, Marsden proves, emphatically, that Hugh Jackman isn't the only X-man with singing and hoofing chops. Pfeiffer, remember, was in "Grease II" — she's right at home here. Travolta vamps his dancing past, slings a silly voice (some of the time) and works out (although his and Walken's body language in their amusing big duet has a touch of the fear of being called "gay" in it).
But that's the point here, always was. Being "different" isn't wrong.
Director-choreographer Adam Shankman forever leaves his "Cheaper by the Dozen 2" hack rep behind, keeping the film on its feet and on the go. The dancing is fun and the editing only heightens the tempo. The two hours pretty much twist, pony and "Stricken Chicken" by at a bounce. Comparing this to last winter's "Dreamgirls" is like comparing mere competence to sheer joy.
<B>TITLE:</B> “Hairspray”<B>CAST:</B> Nikki Blonsky, Zac Efron, James Marsden, John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah, Christopher Walken, Amanda Bynes<B>DIRECTOR:</B> Adam Shankman<B>RATED: </B>PG for language, some suggestive content and momentary teen smoking<B>GRADE: </B>5 Stars (out of 5)
