Opening Night

I love movies and i love music(being a musician myself) but for me it's a case of "Never the twain shall meet". In short I hate people singing in my movies. But this was bloody well done, just the right amount of singing and it made sense. In an era where most "comedies" try to depress the hell out of you for an hour (with a few scattered chuckles thrown in), before the funny and "poignant" ending. This was funny from the start and kept going all the way through. Definitely worth a watch and very entertaining.

I jumped at this movie because Anne Heche is in it. Unfortunately she's only in it briefly, but that's not a real problem. The real problem is that the story starts as a fun goofy comedy musical and becomes a sentimental love story and the segue is poorly done.

The plot revolves around Nick (Topher Grace) who is the back stage manager for a musical titled One Hit Wonders. The lead singer Brooke (Anne Heche) is knocked out and her understudy Chloe (Alona Tal) must take over and it's opening night with a full house. The rest of the cast is made of 'has-beens', 'hopefulls', 'burn-outs', and 'wanna-bes'. There are some fun musical numbers both on stage and back stage.

We learn that Nick was once a popular singer that gave up singing and he and Chloe are in love. Nick must learn a lesson and take a big step (for him) or he will loose Chloe. In the mean time everything that can go wrong back stage does go wrong and Nick is torn in two directions. Finally he takes his big step to get Chloe back and that moment in this musical comedy is too romantic and sentimental to blend into the previous comedy and screwball humor.

Watch it and judge for yourself!

I actually like musicals, but this one just didn't quite work for me. I am a huge Topher Grace fan, and I liked the rest of the cast--it wasn't their fault. The cast delivered what was asked of them. It was a grin hearing all of the "one-hit wonders" again, but some of the arrangements didn't do the music justice--especially for a musical based on popular and well known songs. Of course the story line had all of the usual musical ingredients--love story, boy loses girl, etc. etc. with some fine dancing thrown in. I really should have enjoyed the film much more than I did.

I believe the fault was in the way the story was told--there was simply too much of the "poor me" aspect, and not enough of the rallying, let alone the come back. It's like they emphasized the wrong part of the movie, or else rushed the ending to wrap it up before the story was fully told. It left an empty space where character development/growth should have gone. The uplifting ending was just too abrupt. If it was a song, it would be a three note lullaby.

If you like musicals you should like this. If you don't care about character development, especially in a musical--then you'll like this. It just didn't quite hit the mark for me. Could have been much better with a little more development. It wasn't terrible, or even bad, just- -forgive me, flat and a little "pitchy".

Occasionally you get the movie about movies, or the play about plays, or - as it is in this case - a musical about musicals. I will give it what it's due: the music didn't feel out of place until the very end. I mean, it's a film about the musical business, of which it makes fun of for having people breaking into song for no good reason, so it makes sense to have people break into song all the time, especially if you like circular reasoning. And the acting was OK, although I really feel Topher Grace was pretty weak as a lead and the show was stolen by Taye Diggs, as always.

Other than that it is a straight stage movie, with the high stake opening night as a background, the fast pace of everything, having to work with people that are very different and often overdramatic, the obligatory romance between coworkers and the eventual stand-up ovation that was cringeworthy at the end.

So, I didn't feel the film opened any new world to me. I still dislike musicals and all they stand for and the antics of over-drugged drama queens are of no interest to me. If you like that kind of thing, you might enjoy this. Still I rate it low because I just thought it was a weak movie, not because of the subject matter.

Other people are saying this movie fails because it's copying other movies about the behind the scenes of theatres , but this film is so much cleverer than that.

It's wholly based on old 1 hit wonder songs that we all know, the movie is not about taking it serious at all. Some of the songs will take you back to places that some people will remember.

It's no masterpiece of a movie, it's meant to be cheesy but it's still a clever production.

Give it a go.. it's all about having a little bit of fun.