We take a look at what is being said about this big screen adaptation of the musical, directed by Bill Condon and starring Jennifer Lopez.
The Guardian: *** “there’s something fascinating about the unusual, overstuffed, indefinable mess of it all, especially when compared with last year’s flat and colourless Wicked. A wider audience might not know what to make of it, but Lopez is undeniable.”
Vulture.com: “This Kiss of the Spider Woman might be wildly uneven, but it’s hard not to be moved by the sight of a great new talent emerging into the world.”
Variety: “Condon is a wizard with actors, and with “She’s a Woman,” he gives Tonatiuh his Jennifer Hudson moment, letting the character’s inner yearning shine through every shot. Except with the title number, which features Lopez at her most fabulous, the filmmaker relies more on choreography than melody to make the songs sparkle. “
The Hollywood Reporter: “Bill Condon sets himself a tough assignment trying to transform the tricky material into a great movie musical, but thanks in part to laudable work from his three leads, he occasionally comes close. The writer-director revisits an idea that worked well in his screenplay for 2002’s Chicago — paralleling squalor and splendor, with central characters stuck in grim reality seeking escape through Golden Age Hollywood musical fantasy.”
Indiewire.com: “Tonatiuh gives a breakout performance in Bill Condon’s musical, but what’s a star-making turn with such an un-cosmic production surrounding it?”
New York Post: “Besides those 11 performances of Kander and Ebb’s masterful songs, there is a knotty movie-within-a-movie plot involving a love triangle that’s carelessly breezed through. Its developments are difficult to follow, and the mood is lethargic and noncommittal as though the actors are lampooning the genre instead of legitimately trying.”
Deadline.com: “After a year filled with intriguing musicals from Wicked to Emilia Pérez, Condon carries on the tradition of a genre he has mastered before on a larger scale with Dreamgirls, Beauty and the Beast, and screenwriter on Chicago, now demonstrating it is still fresh and alive and relevant even on the budget of independent filmmaking.”