Viva Laughlin

Could be a good show if they drop the music crap! What are they thinking? Vegas went into the crapper when they spent less time on James Caan catching crooks and too much on the girls P.R. Did you ever see The Godfather break into a song before he "Made an Offer?" These guys would never survive the first round of American Idol! Won't watch it again unless they get rid of the sing-along. I hope the producers read these and maybe try and spruce it up and replace the Sopranos with some newer mobster show. Maybe we have too much to choose from in America than England does but this will never fly here. And does Melanie Griffith need the money that bad she would humiliate herself and waste good acting abilities on a show like this?

It is amazing how terrible this show is. The original series, the BBC's Viva la Blackpool is well acted, original, and surreal. It is a joy to watch. I would highly recommend it.

There have been a lot of British shows that have been butchered by their American adaptations, but none have missed the mark as badly as Viva Laughlin. The original works because the music punctuates the feelings of an otherwise very serious and dark story. The result is surreal and edgy.

Laughlin is a painful over the top Broadwayisation of the original. Laughlin's horrible acting and reworked script makes it impossible for you to connect to any of the characters.

Laughlin fails miserably at capturing any of the emotion or beauty of the BBC version.

I live close enough to the real Laughlin to be able to spend lots of time there, and so I was looking forward to this series. But what a joke! It was obvious that nothing was filmed there, except a few establishing shots of the Colorado Belle. I also laughed at references to 'Laughlin PD' (the town is considered a rural area and is served by Las Vegas Police) and especially the aged boyfriend introduced as 'a professor at the University'. Um...would this be Bullhead Community College, the closest thing to higher learning and a considerable distance across the river? It follows that I was so very disappointed at the lack of realism. This is Laughlin! Where are the queues of old people waiting for the buffet to open? Where are the chain-smoking old ladies with their key rings full of players cards? The folks hooked both to their oxygen and their slot machines dropping their dollars? The man arguing that his two-for-one should be valid at weekends? Thinking about it, I lament the show's cancellation; sometimes something so bad is actually quite good - for laughs.

Viva Laughlin is fun to watch, but only in the same way that the movie "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is fun to watch: It's such a train wreck, you can have fun seeing how bad it gets: The premise is uninteresting. The characters are uninteresting. Most of the musical numbers are lamely choreographed without flair or style. The dialogue is hilariously bad, replete with clichés and bizarre mixed metaphors.

The one bright note (pun intended) in Viva Laughlin is Hugh Jackman's delightfully cheesy interpretation of a gangster-businessman and his rendition of "Sympathy for the Devil." Unfortunately, that character is not a regular character so he would not appear that often.

The other major actors are just awful--and so is the show.

The first time the hero starts dancing to "Via Los Vegas" and hops on the casino table I let it pass. The third time, when Bunny starts singing "One Way or Another" by Blondie, and go into a dancing routine, I clicked the show off an erase it from my DVR.

Why did they do this? Were they trying to make it different then "Las Vegas"? They succeeded but it's awful. I suppose if you like musical it will work for you but I don't find the musical form that entertaining.

It looked like it could of been a good story but they messed it up for me my making it into a musical. What next, turn CSI into a musical? Have singing, rotten corpse?

Viva Laughlin looks like it was done in Bollywood.