Hamilton

badelf 11/22/2022 2:09:19 PM 8.4

If you didn't know going in, this isn't either a film or a TV show. It's a recording of the Broadway play of the same name. Admittedly, this play is for Americans who already have some idea of history. That probably excludes the younger generations, since the public school systems have gone south with years of Republican under-funding. (Seriously, some teachers make less than burger flippers.) As a stage actor and a history buff, I loved this play and am so sorry I didn't get a chance to see it on Broadway. There are multiple reasons I gave this a nine, the major of which is that I'm rating it as a play, not a film. First, I was blown away by the creativity. There is no spoken dialogue which is unusual for a musical. Second, it's done nearly all in hip-hop/rap, with one set-piece even in slam battle. The staging is great. Kudos for creative use of a turntable. I was blown away by the amazing, seemingly complicated, "rewind" scene. Yes, it may or may not be historically accurate. (History, or "his-story" is written by the victors, isn't it?) It's good story telling. It's political. It's fun and it's touching.

Peter McGinn 6/23/2021 3:58:42 PM 8.4

I suppose this movie was behind the eight ball from the very start in a way. On the one hand, there was such a tremendous hype for it as a play, it built the expectation of being blown away, and on the other hand, it being presented in its live theater version made it lose some of the visual impact of seeing it in person. We expect a greater production value on the screen. The story is great, and should be required viewing for children at a certain age. I confess, I wasn’t enthralled by it as a musical. I guess I am too used to musicals that have regular dialogue broken up by songs rather than continuous sung dialogue. If there had been dialogue surroundIng eight or ten lovely songs like Helpless, I would have given it top marks. It is still an impressive production. I feel I have to comment on the diverse cast. I am white and had no problem with the cast choices. I would have cried foul if they had presented an all white cast as some seem to think was required. I had an acquaintance complain, “What if they cast a white actor as Martin Luther King? And all I can do is flip it upside down. There are only a half-dozen people of color in our history books for every hundred Caucasians, and if it reaches the point where whites stop whining when people of color play those roles, I am convinced that people of color will be totally fine with whites playing the roles of people of color. But we aren’t there yet, are we?

sykobanana 6/23/2021 3:58:40 PM 8.4

A Disappointment This is a musical not made for people outside of the USA. I had to watch the thing again and wiki Hamilton to try to figure out who was who except for some of the bigger names. Going by the poster, this is was meant to be some attempted rise to fame of Harry Potter in Hollywood. The casting was varied, which is great generally, but not representative of history (noone looked like what they should have). Historical themes seemed to be swapped around and added in for convenience-sake. Some performances were good, Soo, Groff and Diggs, whilst others (MIranda - who was better in Mary Poppins Returns) just felt flat and tired. It felt like 6 or so cameras were placed and then just recorded. And the choreography was distracting at times, not complimentary. And character development - the only one who shows any is Soo's character. This might be a great musical, but it is not a great movie (despite what people are reviewing it as). It is hard to follow as a citizen of the world who does not know US political history details nor its players. Its cinematography, casting and set pieces felt lazy (this could have been turned into grand cinema). And it was overly long...people might expect this type of thing to go for hours on West End to get their money's worth, but 2hrs 40 is overkill in this medium. The hype behind this made me think this was brilliant. I was majorly disappointed.