I used to love musicals.
Now, I enjoy watching them. In person.
In movie format, however, not so much.
When new musical film adaptations are released in theaters, I will generally go to watch them. However, I’m finding that the more I watch, the worse they are.
Over winter break, I went to the movies to watch the new musical film, Wonka, starring Timothée Chalamet. I wouldn’t say I had exceptionally high hopes for the movie, but I expected to watch a movie that I at least relatively enjoyed. Unfortunately for me, Wonka turned out to be a waste of ten dollars and two hours.
Mostly, the movie-musical felt like a Netflix original movie—a category of film that I prefer to avoid at all costs. While I understand that the film was supposed to cater to a younger audience, all of the jokes in the movie seemed to fall horribly flat. Even if I was six years younger, I highly doubt that I would have been laughing.
However, as much as I disliked Wonka, it is by far not the only subpar musical movie I’ve watched recently.
There have been a considerable amount of substandard musical film adaptations that have come out semi-recently like Matilda the Musical, A Week Away, 13: The Musical, and Cinderella (2021).
A common theme in the plethora of musical-movie adaptations that Hollywood churns out is unfitting casting choices. Even though not every movie, especially those that release straight to streaming platforms, can afford to cast A-List celebrities, it seems like many recent musicals cast actors and actresses who need to be excessively auto-tuned to sound even relatively okay.
In fact, even when A-List celebrities are cast, many directors still cannot seem to choose the right people. In Wonka, it was a tad disorienting seeing Timothée Chalamet, who generally plays serious roles in drama films, goofily dancing and singing.
In some films, soundtracks are switched up as well, straying from the original musicals’ roots. In Cinderella, for example, the soundtrack is composed of pop songs and poor remakes of originals. Although I watched the movie multiple years ago when it was released, one of the few parts of the movie that I can still recall is the horrible music that accompanied the already struggling plot.
Concerning musical films released more recently, in both Matilda The Musical and 13: The Musical, the overarching theme seemed to be a multitude of young children running around without much else memorable taking place. For 13: The Musical especially, I had high hopes for the movie because I’ve enjoyed a few songs from the show over the years, and the original, years ago, had multiple stars in it who I liked. Unfortunately, I did not get the entertaining movie I had hoped for and was, instead, barely inclined to finish watching it.
Even though I’ve found many recent musical movies to be substandard, I want to be clear that I don’t believe that all musical films are horrible. In the Heights, which came out in 2021, was an adequate film adaptation of the Lin-Manuel Miranda Broadway show. The movie stayed similar to the original show and had a cast that played the roles of ambitious New York City residents well.
Mean Girls (2024), which was released this month, was another example of a fitting stage-to-screen adaptation. The soundtrack stayed, for the most part, true to the Broadway version and cast actors/actresses who executed their roles well for the characters. Aside from the strong overall 2021 aesthetic and the fact that Regina George never would have worn black pleather, Mean Girls was a solid musical film.
Even though Netflix original films tend not to be my favorite, The Prom was a straight-to-streaming platform movie that I thought was well-made. Aside from James Corden (who does not need to be in another musical movie ever), the film’s cast is composed of stars who have performing talent and made the movie compelling to watch.
What I’m trying to say, overall, is that I want to like musical movies. I want to see musical movies that are quality productions and accurately recreate the original on-stage shows.
I am tired of wasting time and money only to see poorly directed screen adaptations of musicals. If Hollywood would slow their onslaught of musicals being released and choose to spend more time on creating just a few exquisite movies, maybe they could see that the quality of musical movies should override the quantity of them.
