The best dancer and actor in this movie is Penelope Cruz, who was very flexible and athletic and deserved more dance time than fucking Kate Hudson. This movie wasn't as delightfully batshit crazy and elegant as 8 1/2, which is weird since aren't musicals supposed to be more delightfully crazy than Italian art films? It also feels like two different movies awkwardly juxtaposed together, the musical world and the real world - both don't gel together as well as it did in Chicago. Although it doesn't stay in the moment, there were enough seconds and takes for some of the stars to shine in their singing and dancing skills.
James Cameron likes his leading boys to be carte blanche quick studies and he likes his women to kick ass. I don't know why gender was the first thing on my mind, but I like how he puts those qualities on the characters that Worthington and Weaver play. My bullshit meter went up quite a few times but the characters made the movie. And Avatar made me lurve Sammy all over again. And this is one of the few movies this year when I didn't look at my watch.
Just re-watched it. Despite of the CGI and a few unsalvageable (tee-hee) line reads, this made me wanna see Avatar. It'll be on once every six months, you will sit on the couch, relive the cheese and get your heart broken watching all that death.