Dream Girls

I recently watched Dreamgirls starring Jamie Foxx, Beyonce Knowles, Eddie Murphy, and Jennifer Hudson. The film is directed by Bill Condon, according to his imdb bio, he has no previous musical directing experience, he did help write Chicago. As a whole I enjoyed the movie, I think Jennifer Hudson deserved her OSCAR, her performance is by far the strongest and the most moving of the entire cast. Eddie Murphy is also very good, but oscar worthy that is up for debate; however what this film showed, is that Mr. Murphy is much more of an actor, than previously given credit for. Jamie Foxx has a one note performance in this film, I don't know if that is because of his acting style or the way the character is written. I do know that when he shares the screen with Jennifer Hudson his presence on screen is felt more then when sharing the screen with Beyonce.
Now, getting to Beyonce. Her performance was adequate, not bad, not good, just okay. Most scenes had her looking pretty, she can do that just fine, when asked to emote that's when the problem start. I think with time and with acting classes she has the ability to become a good actress, and one day she might, but in this movie, she comes off a little wooden. I liked all of the dance numbers, and it was clearly evident that all the actors and actresses worked their tails off doing the dance routines, and should be applauded for it, it looked great, the songs were good, not outstanding but good. The parts I question in the movie deal with the characters singing outside of any musical numbers. For 95% of the movie the actors only sing when they have musical numbers to perform in a show, but there are 3 in the middle of the movie, where they just sing. This took me out of the movie, for the first half, and the end, they only sing when a musical number is happening. I never saw Dreamgirls on stage, so for all I know this is how it happens in the play; but in the movie it didn't work for me. I believe that fault lies with a relatively inexperienced director. This movie is definitely worth renting, but I wouldn't buy it, and I don't regret not seeing it in the theater.