Movie Review: Burlesque

I'm not exactly an expert on burlesque shows but this is what I think I understand: the shows involve an artful and entertaining striptease -- a carefully choreographed routine designed to tease and titillate. Routines also sometimes involve satirical or slapstick comedy. When I saw previews for Burlesque and saw that it was starring both Cher and Christina Aguilera, I was pretty sure that the "art form" would have some liberties taken with it. As portrayed in the movie, this burlesque looks like the 1940's version of MTV. Flashing lights, loud music, ill-conceived lip synching and plenty of scantily-clad women who neither strip nor tease.

The film really wastes no time in telling you that they're playing it tongue-in-cheek. Aguilera is a poor waitress from a small town in Iowa who takes a bus to the magical land of Los Angeles. I'm not exactly sure what she hoped to find in LA but, then again, I've been there and had no aspirations of singing or dancing for a living. So maybe I was just looking in the wrong alleys and side-streets.

Aguilera walks through town, finds a burlesque club, watches as Cher does a fancy burlesque number, decides that it's her life's mission to be a dancer and starts her journey as a waitress. This allows us to see that she's determined, crafty, smart and skilled. All of these will be forgotten by the time the credits roll because they're not skills she needs once she makes it as the head dancer.

The film doesn't really know if it wants to be a fairy tale or a full-on musical. There are the typical musical bits like singing when emotions are too difficult to express in words. But there's too much fairy tale "story building", if you catch my meaning. The evil bad man who wants to demolish the burlesque club is a real estate developer but, if I'm not mistaken, there's not really a good reason for him to be the evil bad man.

He doesn't try to kick them out with shifty real estate tactics, he just sees an opportunity to expand his empire because Cher doesn't have practical business sense. The club is in danger of being seized by the bank unless they come up with a large amount of cash in a short amount of time. You'd think in a film like this that Aguilera would come in, blow everyone away with her singing/dancing, attract half the city to visit the club and everyone will be happy. It concludes a lot more plausibly than that but I'll spare you the spoiler of explaining the anticlimactic ending.

Burlesque doesn't shy away from the fun of jazzy music, insane dance routines, or campy, romantic story-lines. It features great character actors hamming it up with fun bit parts. In particular is Stanley Tucci who, as the gay best friend of Cher, made me completely forget about how scary he was last year as the killer in The Lovely Bones.

Alan Cumming seems to have been pulled in as a favor, is given four lines in five scenes and plays the doorman. You couldn't really classify anything in this film as subtle but I'm sure there was never an intention to even try. If you can enjoy something as ridiculous as all of this sounds, you would have a great time. If you're put off by anything I've said then you've probably already made up your mind.

Score: 3 out of 5
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