Let me get this out of the way – I’m a Gleek. I absolutely loved the first season of Glee, the 2nd not so much. While it had some strong episodes, I didn’t think the song selection was as good as it was in the first season. I mean really, an entire episode devoted to Brittney Spears and Lady GaGa? Give me a break. Also, I just can’t stand Kurt (hate his voice, character, everything) and the entire season was all about him. But as a Gleek, I’m a sucker for the Glee Albums (I own all 6 or 8 of them) and I even purchased tickets to the Concert. Unfortunately I was not able to attend, so I was excited at the idea of a Glee Concert Movie. I may have to turn in my Gleek card.
The movie isn’t so much a concert as a series of annoying “Glee changed my life,” vignettes that follows the lives of several fans of the show. We watch a short (what’s the PC Term these days? Little Person?) high school girl become a popular cheerleader and prom queen, we learn how the show helped a gay kid learn to accept himself, and a woman with Asperger’s disorder learn to get out in the world all because of the wonder of Glee.
Along with this we get endless shots of screaming fans and the same 4 people talking about how much they love Glee. What a load of B.S. We Glee fans GET IT! You don’t have to beat us over the head, just give us the damn concert!
The other really annoying thing about all of this was the entire cast lived the gimmick and remained in “character,” throughout the show.
When did Glee become pretentious, pompous and preachy?
Somewhere in the midst of all the self-aggrandizement is the concert that I paid $15 (not counting the burned $10 chicken tenders) to see.
It’s almost worth the price of admission to see Amber Riley belt out Aretha Franklin’s Ain’t No Way. Definitely a high point, some of the other song selections seemed weird, I don’t know why they did Michael Jackson’s PYT instead of recreating their amazing performance of Thriller. Or why Kevin McHale did Safety Dance a song that I always hated. Well, that’s actually easy, it gave Kevin a chance to break the “3rd wall” and get out of the wheelchair for a few minutes.
Lea Michelle’s version of Firework is awesome, but Katy Perry is played so much on the radio that I now want to pull an Elvis and shoot the radio whenever I hear one of her songs. Lea is so technically perfect in all her performances, but the song choices they have for her are so old fashioned that she just never works for me.
This movie should put to rest the idea that the cast isn’t talented and that they “lip sync.” One thing that I always loved about Glee was how amazing all the performances on the show are and the amount of energy the cast brings to each and every number. There’s a real chemistry with this cast , so it was disappointing that the concert featured very few moments where the entire choir were on stage together.
I walked in wanting see my favorite High School Choir belt out songs from the show and have fun. There was no fun on the screen, during any of the performances and it seemed like everyone involved focused so hard on being “perfect,” that they forgot to bring the fun from the show to the stage. I’m not saying I didn’t love the musical moments, because I did. But they all missed the fun part of the performance. The cast hardly ever smiled during the entire 90-minute concert. Everything was just so “technical.”
As a Gleek who missed out on the opportunity to see them live, you don’t know how much I was looking forward to seeing this. It pains me to say it, but this was very disappointing from the opening animated short (why is there a completely unrelated short before this movie?) to the end. I will probably like this a lot better on Blu-ray when I don’t have to put up with the crappy 3D or the annoying “Glee changed my life” stories.
Final Grade C
EM Review by
Michelle Alexandria
Originally posted 08.14.2011