"Burlesque" Review - From the Vaults

What did you do with your day? Did you have a nice time in the sunshine? Did you do something productive?

I'll tell you what I did with mine.

I watched fucking "Burlesque", that's what I did with my fucking day.

Remember when Footloose had 90 songs in its runtime and was stretched to 2 hours, yet felt like another six of footage was cut? Me neither. That's what this is. It's budget PG showgirls, without the tits,. It's "Repo: The Genetic Opera" with somehow worse songs, worse production values and an even shittier premise and writing (made marginally better when it was pointed out to me that this is the plot of "The Muppets Movie" but with Cher). It's a fucking tragic waste of time, effort and money by all involved. Stanley Tucci, what the hell did they pay you? I'm telling you, it wasn't enough. 

Christina is a small town girl whose defining character traits are that she enjoys taking her shoes off and singing to a jukebox, and is a bitch. She moves to a club (after about 8 songs) to become a dancer. After another 9 songs, she meets the hulking dumbass from "Easy A" (watch that, it's just a better movie in every way) and endures another 6 songs. Then she becomes a dancer, looking more like Kristen Bell than Kristen Bell.

Oh yes, Kristen Bell is in this.

Occasionally Cher will show up to have a "who is more bored" contest with Tucci (who, admittedly, is packing some pretty tasty guns in this movie. I mean, seriously, he looks like the Burt Reynolds Cosmopolitan centerfold picture in this at one point), and then we cut back to rushed, hackneyed dialogue, the plot of the Muppets movie, Budget Bob Thornton, more terrible songs, and an editor who was clearly coming down from a particular nasty LSD trip which he was medicating with PCP.  It is through the graces of whoever edited this mess that it feels LONGER than the two hour runtime, despite having about 40 minutes of material.

Remember how in "Guardians of the which, whilst seemingly unconnected, fit the tone and came together nicely? Remember how in "Chicago" all of the music fits? Remember how in "Filth" the soundtrack is all soul? Well, here it's a compilation mix tape of songs left out of "Step Up", and cut versions of Lady Marmalade, as well as some truly fucking awful numbers here and there. In Guardians, the credits rolled to "Surrender", my favourite song of all time and a perfect fit for the film. In Filth is was "Love Really Hurts Without You", which gave it a tragic, brutally savage and yet uplifiting tone, much like the movie itself.

Here it's a cover of "Beautiful People".

Because... sure.

Fuck me, don't watch this.

Not at all.

THIS has more Golden Globes than Escape from New York and The Thing combined.