Like its stage antecedent, the movie musical of "The Producers" is an engagingly broad farce that has lots of hilariously funny moments as well as several ponderous stretches where the characters try to get on with the plot without the benefit of any real human interaction to help them along. The performers who are really adept at spinning shtick Nathan Lane, Roger Bart, and especially Gary Beach as the outrageous director cum actor Roger De Bris (all from the original Broadway cast) perform absolute alchemy with the thin material, making you laugh so hard that you forget that you're really not watching anything more than an elaborately produced Burlesque skit.
Far less amusing are Will Ferrell and Uma Thurman. Ferrell sings and dances disarmingly well (be sure to stick around for a hilarious German ballad he sings at the end of the credits), but he lacks menace as Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind so it is difficult to buy Lane and Broderick's cowering at his presence in their scenes together. Thurman tries her best as the title characters' Swedish sex toy, but isn't a patch on the part's Tony-winning stage creator Cady Huffman. She is also a bit long in the tooth to be playing a character who is the living embodiment of sex, especially as she lacks any chemistry with love interest Mathew Broderick.
Broderick proves himself once again to be a marvelously talented musical theatre performer, but his acting is forced and lacks the naturalness (and manic comic inventiveness) of Gene Wilder in the 1968 film version. And while Lane is undeniably brilliant when performing his unique brand of shtick, the celebrated Broadway pair display surprisingly little chemistry so that the friendship which emerges as their supposed bond never materializes.
But with a movie like "The Producers," it's best not to delve too deep. The film has some wonderful dance numbers (cleverly staged by Broadway original Susan Stroman), a terrific production design and a funny script by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan (although like in the Broadway show, Brooks' score is fairly lackluster and doesn't contain any memorable songs beyond the "Springtime for Hitler" number from the original film). If you're looking for a movie that will bring you a few belly laughs that you can then forget about an hour after you've seen it, "The Producers" delivers.
Far less amusing are Will Ferrell and Uma Thurman. Ferrell sings and dances disarmingly well (be sure to stick around for a hilarious German ballad he sings at the end of the credits), but he lacks menace as Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind so it is difficult to buy Lane and Broderick's cowering at his presence in their scenes together. Thurman tries her best as the title characters' Swedish sex toy, but isn't a patch on the part's Tony-winning stage creator Cady Huffman. She is also a bit long in the tooth to be playing a character who is the living embodiment of sex, especially as she lacks any chemistry with love interest Mathew Broderick.
Broderick proves himself once again to be a marvelously talented musical theatre performer, but his acting is forced and lacks the naturalness (and manic comic inventiveness) of Gene Wilder in the 1968 film version. And while Lane is undeniably brilliant when performing his unique brand of shtick, the celebrated Broadway pair display surprisingly little chemistry so that the friendship which emerges as their supposed bond never materializes.
But with a movie like "The Producers," it's best not to delve too deep. The film has some wonderful dance numbers (cleverly staged by Broadway original Susan Stroman), a terrific production design and a funny script by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan (although like in the Broadway show, Brooks' score is fairly lackluster and doesn't contain any memorable songs beyond the "Springtime for Hitler" number from the original film). If you're looking for a movie that will bring you a few belly laughs that you can then forget about an hour after you've seen it, "The Producers" delivers.