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- Review count1
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- First reviewAugust 15, 2011
- Last reviewAugust 15, 2011
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canneverthinkofnicknames's Reviews
Overall rating
4
/
5
Missed both goals
PostedAugust 15, 2011
canneverthinkofnicknames
from New York, NY
I only gave this a high rating because the Glee performances were so spectacular. It would have been nice to actually see those performances in full rather than these horribly cut-down versions in the movie.
The attempt to weave the fan stories into a movie failed miserably, simply because no director, no matter how genius, could actually create a whole cohesive movie in two months. The fan stories were nice, but the movie never came together with a message or flow or story at all. That would have taken a lot more production and editing time!
The live show itself told a whole story and had a flow to it and a message! The movie completely ignored that, threw in cut up shortened versions of some of the songs, and threw them in entirely out of order. Friends with me who are fans of the show but didn't see the live tour watched this movie and thought that the Glee actors were not in character on stage. They didn't understand the tiny little backstage clips at all. The movie makes it look like the live show was just the actors getting up there to singing some of the songs from their hit TV show for you, since it's all out of order and the songs have no introduction or follow-through. They are reallly just random clips of some of the songs and not all of the songs from the live show. The tiny in-character shots from backstage were pointless since there were so few of them and so short that you never get a sense of the characters from Lima are here doing a live show. The short clips therefore seem nothing but silly. The best backstage material was used only in the trailers and teasers, and not in the movie.
With no storyline for the songs on stage, which the live show had and the movie cut out, things like Artie miraculously dancing made no sense, Forget You didn't belong anywhere, Empire State of Mind had none of the impact it had live, etc etc etc. Right after one of the moving fan stories concluded with the fan disclosing how much the character of Kurt Hummel changed his life, the camera REPEATEDLY follows Rachel in the duet with Kurt, with Rachel close-up after close-up after close-up, showing Kurt off in her background as if it's not a duet at all, but a Rqchel solo with him kind of also there but not important as an extra back-up. I found that particularly disturbing, since even fans posting cel phone camera versions of the song on YouTube did a better job of capturing the beauty of that duet and its meaning to both Rachel and Kurt, as well as to fans like Trenton.
I think that if you attempt to make a major motion picture in 3D and create the whole thing in mere months, the only thing that could have worked would have been to just follow the storyline of the live show, present the full songs, and give movie-goers a movie version of the concert. The three main fan-stories could have been presented each in turn as its own full story and made more sense than interspersing them and all the other random fan questions throughout as they were, without enough cohesion. The movie could have presented just the stage show and then the director could have taken the time to put together the fan stories better and release them on the DVD.
The way it was done, too rushed, too ambitious for the timing, and therefore way too shoddily thrown together, this movie accomplished none of its goals. It was wholly dissappointing, and is only worth seeing because even with cut-down versions of the songs, it is fantastic to see great-quality footage of these performer singing on stage. The fan stories and Kellen (the mini Warbler) are worth seeing as well, and could have been moving and fabulous, if only they had been given the respect of good editing and storytelling which a longer production period than a couple months would have allowed.
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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