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Men In Black 3

It’s not a sequel that needed to be made, but thanks to the charm of its leads and a tone that harks back to the wit and humour of the original, it’s a pretty enjoyable trip.

Bel Ami

The excellent female support cast saves this patchy effort, which is let down by its leading man and a flat screenplay.

The Dictator

A disappointing, often repulsive and mean-spirited mess of a film with seemingly only one real criterion on its agenda: to shock and offend.

The Woman In Black

Packed with atmosphere, this old-fashioned but deftly told ghost story delivers ample chills and thrills.

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Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (Film)

by Julian Shaw | August 10, 2011 15:38 | Edited August 10, 2011 17:29

Sure, it’s flamboyant and saccharine, but with all the cast in top form, this is also infectious, uplifting, and occasionally stirring stuff.

While tent pole blockbusters have used 3D to frequently deleterious effect, one format that keeps on giving is the ‘concert' movie. 3D was seemingly born for the purpose of simulating a live crowd feel and all the contagion that leads to. The boon continues with Glee: The 3D Concert Movie, an indoor spectacular which feels like a booster of Red Bull injected directly into the adrenal glands.

 

Having conquered the small screen and social media since its 2009 debut, Glee has become a genuine pop-cultural heavyweight - and well deserved too. It's style and internal logic are clear from the first scene of episode one - ordinary teens, ground down by the oppressive cliques of high school, launch into musical theatre routines at their extracurricular ‘Glee' club, goaded by a handsome teacher (Mathew Morrison, who is sadly amiss in this concert film). The impromptu songs are perfectly auto tuned and backed by invisible orchestral and percussive sections - but who's complaining? Certainly not the show-makers, who have the songs ready for download on iTunes by the time each episode goes off-air.

 

Translating the improbably polished aesthetic of Glee to a live concert experience is harder than you might first think, but the gifted cast pull it off here - with their high-octane covers of everything from Britney's ‘I'm A Slave 4 U' to the  The Beatles' ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand' landing with visceral impact. The rest of your favourite characters are in the mix -Rachel (Lea Michele), the throaty songbird and resident goody-two-shoes; Quinn (Dianna Agron), the bitchy temptress; Kurt, an openly gay sweetheart (Chris Colfer); Finn, the hunky crooner (Cory Monteith); and Artie (Kevin McHale), the wheelchair-bound hero for the non-able bodied. Needless to say, all are in top form.

 

This concert flick makes a good fist of intercutting the on-stage antics with revealing backstage materials (there's some surprisingly barbed and funny cast banter) and a decent amount of time spent with Glee fans, or ‘Gleeks.' It's undoubtedly saccharine but often uplifting stuff as we meet a dwarf and an Aspergers sufferer who have been motivated by Glee to shrug off their gloomy introversion and tackle day to day life with a smile. Indeed, the x-factor of Glee is the way in which it throws its arms around the underdog, legitimately championing the disenfranchised - the dags, the nerds, the skinny, the overweight, the racially maligned, the sexually insecure. If the irreducible message of this concert movie is ‘enjoy yourself because, baby, you were born this way' it's no wonder Gaga soon rears her head... and that's not to mention a surprisingly rousing cameo from Gwyneth Paltrow.   

 

Flamboyant, bouncy and stirring, Glee: The 3D Concert Movie is a guaranteed good-time for Gleeks, and maybe even for those unacquainted with this popular musical franchise.