Hairspray

Hollywood’s got a new bag to bypass the generational waiting time before remaking films … do a Broadway musical version, and then film the musical. Expect Legally Blonde:: The Musical to hit the multiplex within a year. As such, Hairspray: The film of the musical of the film is not half bad, not half good … just sort of there in a relentlessly chirpy sort of way. Nothing memorable about it, aside for the news break that it was some perky Baltimore girl in 1962 who realized that segregation was bad and pointed it out to everyone else … amid plenty of middlebrow-friendly showtunes. Kind of like a wide-eyed Micky Rooney and Judy Garland going, “Let’s put on a march!” The original was John Waters’ midlife crisis film that shrugged off his bad taste ethos for a shot at respectability, and this version vanilla-izes (with a tasty chocolate swirl) the material even further. Perfect for anyone who wants to spend two hours without a single thought crossing their tiny little minds.