Movie Review: Burlesque

 My friend KJ and I spent part of our Thanksgiving Day in the cineplex. We wanted a fun, light movie and most of the holiday releases didn’t fit the bill. Faster is an action-packed, angry revenge pic, and we wanted laughter not a pissed off Rock. Thanks to reading a spoiler-laden review of Love and Other Drugs, I got the feeling that it might be a bit of a downer. And who wants to feel down before stuffing themselves with stuffing, turkey and all of the rest of the fixings? Tangled was light and fun, but we weren’t in the mood to be surrounded by the kiddies on Thanksgiving. Since KJ and I both liked musicals, we settled on Burlesque. We got what we were looking for a fun light movie. We enjoyed ourselves.

Now, Burlesque isn’t Chicago. It won’t be winning a bunch of Academy Awards … which is probably why the critics, for the most part, have hated it. However, I’m not judging the movie on some lofty set of standards that it wasn’t aiming for in the first place, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. I went to see some great singing and dancing an awesome set design and costumes, and I got exactly what I was looking for.

The plot was straightforward enough. Small town Iowa girl Ali (Christina Aguilera) heads for the bright lights of Los Angeles. She stumbles on the Burlesque club, with its fabulous owner Tess (Cher) and has to be a part of it. She starts off as a waitress and moves up to show girl, where she clashes with headlining diva, Nikki. Of course, once Tess and company hear The Voice, Ali becomes the new HDIC (Head Diva in Charge).

Clichés abound. There is the obligatory love triangle. Ali must choose between the wealthy Marcus (Eric Dane) and bartender/songwriter/roommate Jack (Cam Gigandet). Then, there is the club-in-jeopardy angle. Marcus wants to buy the club from the cash-strapped Tess who is facing a huge balloon payment on the club that she can’t possibly pay.

Aguilera will never be accused of being a great actress (and the wig she wore for most of the movie was bad to the point of distraction), but she is passable here. What she lacks in acting chops, she more than makes up for on the stage. The musical numbers are what everyone seeing Burlesque is coming to see and they were awesome. Great costumes. Catchy tunes. Christina Aguilera and Cher on vocals. It was a good time.