Among all that hype, I expected more from this.

The music was just a little above average, the singing wasn’t something to jump up and down for, the plot wasn’t that great, and the acting, well I thought John Trovolta and Christopher Walken were actually missed-casts.

John Travolta should have just played the father instead and get a proper female actress to play his wife. Instead, we have Christopher Walken, thin and fragile looking, and he’s supposed to convince us he’s in love with a big woman who’s actually a man underneath that prosthetics. That just didn’t work at all.

Nikki Blonsky was commendable, however, as a newcomer taking on such a big role and executing it that well. Her singing wasn’t top notched but it was enough to be a hit. Queen Latifah is also another missed-cast. She is far from a good singer and yet she had to sing quite a few numbers which were far from captivating and lost me halfway through.

Michelle Pfeiffer made a good comeback to the movies. You can almost tell she’s fresh out of a long sabbatical and is full of energy and life. Luckily we can get to see her again soon in Stardust. The other sub-casts were commendable, especially James Marsden and Zach Efron. Not very sure about Amanda Bynes though but her character didn’t have much to go on with.

The story started off really promising, and the opening song was definitely the best song in the whole movie. The first half was excellent but the second half, it dropped a few notches and sub-plots took too long between each scene that it was bordering on slumber.

But this movie may just go on to win some awards, especially make up and costumes. Though I’m the least bit excited about Blonsky wearing the unflattering sleeveless dress.

Rating: 7 / 10

(all images from imdb.com)