I recently finally saw the movie version of Evita, starring Madonna, Antonio Banderas, & Jonathan Pryce. I'd heard a lot of the soundtrack before but this was my first time seeing the whole movie. Overall, I'd give it a C-. There are a lot of fun songs and Antonio Banderas gives the best performances of his career (which is quite a feat considering I thought he was very good in Desperado & The Mask of Zorro, two much better movies).
There are two things that killed the movie for me:
1.) Madonna is terrible. Her vocal performance carries the songs admirably. But she fails to create a vibrant character. There's such a clinical distance from her character that I'm still not sure whether it's supposed to be the story of a well-meaning poor girl who gets some lucky breaks and ultimately winds up way over her head or the story of a conniving social climber who deliberately uses her immense charm to bypass normal channels and shoot straight to the top of Argentina's political power. I'm not sure if her dying young was supposed to be a senseless tragedy or karmic retribution.
2.) Even if Madonna's performance wasn't up to the challenge of forming a clear character, I'd still expect the director to do something with the material to make me understand why any of this matters. (It reminds me a bit of Oliver Stone's Alexander in terms of directionlessness.) Also, many times, the staging of the film doesn't carry over the same energy conveyed by the music. The film often looks static when the music is rocking.
I actually used to know an actor who was part of the stage show's touring company. He said that the movie is pretty much universally regarded as a joke amongst those who work on the stage show because the stage version is very much a dancing show and nearly all of the dancing was cut from the film.
All in all, I'd say the movie just makes me want to see the stage show to see Evita done properly.
What do you folks think?
There are two things that killed the movie for me:
1.) Madonna is terrible. Her vocal performance carries the songs admirably. But she fails to create a vibrant character. There's such a clinical distance from her character that I'm still not sure whether it's supposed to be the story of a well-meaning poor girl who gets some lucky breaks and ultimately winds up way over her head or the story of a conniving social climber who deliberately uses her immense charm to bypass normal channels and shoot straight to the top of Argentina's political power. I'm not sure if her dying young was supposed to be a senseless tragedy or karmic retribution.
2.) Even if Madonna's performance wasn't up to the challenge of forming a clear character, I'd still expect the director to do something with the material to make me understand why any of this matters. (It reminds me a bit of Oliver Stone's Alexander in terms of directionlessness.) Also, many times, the staging of the film doesn't carry over the same energy conveyed by the music. The film often looks static when the music is rocking.
I actually used to know an actor who was part of the stage show's touring company. He said that the movie is pretty much universally regarded as a joke amongst those who work on the stage show because the stage version is very much a dancing show and nearly all of the dancing was cut from the film.
All in all, I'd say the movie just makes me want to see the stage show to see Evita done properly.
What do you folks think?
), but since when does the money in ANY South American country always end up where it's supposed to go? One does have to consider the culture here and recognize that a certain amount of corruption is a way of life in MOST of the world's countries.
