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100A great big sloppy kiss of entertainment for audiences weary of explosions, CGI effects and sequels, sequels, sequels.
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100The best and most entertaining movie adaptation of a stage musical so far this century - and yes, I'm including the Oscar-winning "Chicago."
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100Movie magic.
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100In its entirety, Hairspray has the funny tilt that only a director-choreographer like Shankman can give to a movie.
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100With its wisecracking screenplay, period-perfect pop score, and Shankman's splashy choreography, this may be the funniest, dancingest screen musical since "Singin' in the Rain."
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100A feel-good musical that, for a change, actually makes you feel good.
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91A fizzy and delirious high-camp message-movie musical that may just turn out to be the happiest movie of the summer.
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91So good at what it does that it can exhaust you: In the later going, one big number follows on the heels of another so quickly that it feels more like an opera than a regular musical.
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91Broad and funny, its sensibility is very campy and it's out to be loved by everyone.
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88It's hard to resist the film's exuberance.
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88Just plain fun. Or maybe not so plain. There's a lot of craft and slyness lurking beneath the circa-1960s goofiness.
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88A rocking, rollicking crowd-pleaser.
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88If you look fast, you'll see Waters himself in a cameo (as a flasher; what else?), proof the new film is in touch with its dyed roots.
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88The film's an irresistible time capsule of that Camelot summer, blending girrrrrl power, social consciousness and faux-'60s pop with the fizz of a soda jerk whipping up a root beer float.
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80Offering plenty of body and a lot of lift, Hairspray gels kitsch styling with show-stopping tunes to mould a memorable musical.
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80What it offers isn't really a nostalgic look at a "more innocent time" so much as a saucy wink at a casually vicious time that is constantly being sold to us as innocent.
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80The overall mood of Hairspray is so joyful, so full of unforced enthusiasm, that only the most ferocious cynic could resist it.
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80Shankman and his screenwriter, Leslie Dixon, prove you can make a lightweight Broadway musical into big movie fun.
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80It's one of the best Broadway-tuner adaptations in recent years -- yes, arguably even better than those Oscar-winning ones.
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78If ever there were a happy summer movie, it's Hairspray. But for all its bubbly musical numbers and effervescent good humor, this film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical feels oddly lacquered -- it's John Waters by way of Disney.
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75Less polished but more fun than "Dreamgirls." Both are drag revues at heart, one funny, the other serious. I prefer the funny one.
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75Delivers an even bigger sugar rush than the hit Broadway musical.
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75For all the flash and flutter, the movie overall lacks, well, HEFT.
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75John Travolta may stand out as a plus-size laundress who is hesitant, drab and retiring, but Hairspray is a consistently flashy, rousing and rambunctious movie spectacle.
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75The film isn't deep or thematically rich or filled with amazing characters. Instead, it's an excursion into song and dance, and works admirably on that level.
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75This Hairspray really is a lot of fun -- colorful, sassy, and brisk.
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75Though the film is too slick and heavy-handed in its pro-integration sloganeering, and it's burdened by Travolta's ill-conceived star turn, its infectious high spirits and catchy tunes still pack one hell of a sugar rush.
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70John Travolta takes on John Waters in Hairspray, and the result is anything but a drag in this appealingly goofy, all-singing, all-dancing screen adaptation of the Broadway musical based on the 1988 film.
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70Hairspray isn't all that bad, frankly. The songs are catchy, most of the leads are engaging enough (Blonksy and Bynes especially), and there's just enough low-key subversiveness to keep everything from getting too saccharine.
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70Travolta, looking believably pretty and sweet under layers of fondant Latex, is a wholly different incarnation of Edna. And he's not bad. But that right there is the problem with Hairspray: It's all so "not bad" that it isn't nearly enough, even when Shankman and his cast work hard to send it soaring over the top.
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70Adam Shankman's movie of the Broadway Hairspray gets better as it lumbers along, but there's something garish about its hustle--it's like an elephant trumpeting in your face.
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70This movie-turned-stage-show-turned-movie-again is intermittently tasty, if a little too frantically eager to please.
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In the musical numbers, where by rights Mr. Travolta should shine, he's almost out-danced and certainly out-charmed by Edna's better half, Wilbur (Christopher Walken), who is one of the movie's great assets, an oasis of calm amid the twisting and shouting.
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When Hairspray is twisting and shouting and swiveling its hips, you can even dare to believe a great society is waiting in the wings.
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70The movie version of the hit Broadway musical Hairspray is perfectly pleasant--I smiled to myself all the way through it--but it's not as exhilarating as the show.
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63What completely undermines that appearance is Shankman's chronic inability to shoot the damn scene. His camerawork is so stiff it should be interred in a pine box.
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The movie is visually flat: not pasty and garish in the Waters signature style, but merely serviceable and competent in the worst tradition of Hollywood "professionalism."
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 65 out of 87
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Mixed: 7 out of 87
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Negative: 15 out of 87
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4One thing for sure, this movie is definitely not my type. But in some way, it was entertaining at some parts which is why it only JUST gets a 4.
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Mike1
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LennyC.3