7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.2 |
At a time when crimes of passion result in celebrity headlines, nightclub sensation Velma Kelly and spotlight-seeking Roxie Hart both find themselves sharing space on Chicago's famed Murderess Row! They also share Billy Flynn, the town's slickest lawyer with a talent for turning notorious defendants into local legends. But in Chicago there's only room for one legend!
Starring: Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah, John C. ReillyMusical | 100% |
Comedy | 97% |
Period | 56% |
Drama | 23% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
French: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: LPCM 2.0
English SDH, French, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
For those of you who were lucky enough to catch a Bob Fosse staged show on Broadway, you’ll know what I mean
when I say, both unashamedly and unabashedly, that the master showman’s touch could literally change your life. I
was a kid when I visited family in New York City and through one of my Uncles’ connections was able to get front row
tickets for Pippin, a show that was then playing to standing room only audiences. With an incredible cast
including John Rubinstein, Jill Clayburgh, Ben Vereen, and The Beverly Hillbillies’ own “Granny,” Irene Ryan,
Pippin was one of the first major Broadway musicals to utilize television advertising to cement its box office
appeal. Why the show took a while to really catch fire is anyone’s guess, but I can tell you as a youngster sitting in the
audience that night, at my first ever Broadway musical (as opposed to touring or bus and truck productions), I was
awestruck by the genius Fosse employed throughout the staging. From the first moment, where the entire proscenium
was aglow with blacklit gloved hands, through two hours of unbelievably brilliant choreography and stagecraft, I simply
could not believe my eyes. Fosse ultimately became something of a born again wunderkind that year, with
Pippin winning him two Tony Awards, his film version of Cabaret netting him an Oscar, and his television
special Liza With a Z handing him an Emmy, a rare example of an artist managing a triple crown of major awards
in little more than a year.
Though Fosse worked on a couple of special theatrical presentations after Pippin, his next “real” musical was
1975’s Chicago, a show that actually opened to better reviews than Pippin had, and which went on to a
substantial, multi-year run, but which in one of those strange vagaries of history, got somewhat buried under the
onslaught of a little show (and critical darling) called A Chorus Line. Though Chicago’s original Broadway
iteration had the incredible talents of Jerry Orbach, Gwen Verdon (the ex-Mrs. Fosse, of course) and Chita Rivera, and
featured a marvelous pastiche laden score by the great John Kander and Fred Ebb (of Cabaret fame), it
seemed fated to reside in that strange netherworld of fairly successful shows which nonetheless never rise to the level
of an unforgettable classic. That was the case, anyway, until over two decades after the original version
opened, when in 1996 a new, stripped down production opened to rave reviews and pretty much unanimous audience
acclaim. That production, incredibly, is still running today (with different stars, obviously), having gotten well past the
5,000 performance mark. Finally Hollywood stood up and took notice of the property in real terms (it had been bandied
about from studio to studio for years, including with Fosse himself attached to direct). But there really hadn’t been a
successful film musical in years, and no one knew how to translate Chicago’s unabashed theatricality to film (the
show is told as a succession of vaudeville “acts” in its original Broadway version). Attempt after attempt to make the
property filmically viable ended in failure, until finally director Rob Marshall hit upon the idea which enabled the project to
both stay true to its roots and also exploit the medium of cinema.
Renee Zellweger is Roxie Hart
Despite being released relatively early in the Blu-ray era, Chicago looks decently sharp in its 1080p/AVC encoded transfer, with a couple of notable exceptions. Marshall's "mind's eye" gambit means that virtually all of the musical numbers play out on large, largely darkened spaces, where contrast has been pumped, giving a slightly unreal look to the sequences. While colors never bloom, grain is somewhat more apparent in some of these sequences than in the "real life" moments. While the bulk of the film is sharp as a tack, sometimes there's a hint of softness, as in the first apartment scene with Zellweger and Reilly. Overall, though, colors pop nicely, with some great, wonderfully saturated reds really standing out nicely against the black backdrops. Fleshtones are lifelike, and there is no apparent DNR.
Chicago really excels in its superb uncompressed LPCM 5.1 mix. Kander and Ebb's score wafts through the surround channels with appealing warmth and bombast, and all of the voices sound wonderfully clear and at times surprisingly nuanced. Directionality is really most apparent in some of the ambient environmental sounds as well as dialogue. Some of the court scenes, for example, utilize really excellent channel separation, envelloping the listener in a very real seeming sound world. Surround channels also tend to kick in in the "paparazzi" moments, when Hart's sudden realization that her "claim to fame" is coming perhaps nightmarishly true immerses her, and the audience, in the madness of the raging sounds of hangers on. Fidelity is wonderfully precise throughout all frequencies, with everything well balanced and lacking any distortion. This is a very compelling sound mix, very worthy of its Oscar win.
Almost all of the supplements from the "Razzle Dazzle" 2 DVD special edition have been ported over to this Blu-ray:
Chicago may have lost a little of its lustre in the intervening years since its release. Marshall's mind's eye gambit may rub theatrical purists the wrong way, but taken on its own terms, this film delivers a lot of the stage version's razzle dazzle, if without the acerbity of Fosse's original.
2005
Director's Extended Edition
2006
2-Disc Shake and Shimmy Edition
2007
2007
2010
1968
1967
2012-2013
1964
Sing-Along Edition
2018
70th Anniversary Edition
1952
Fox Studio Classics
1969
10th Anniversary Edition
2008
1954
2004
1955
1953
1953
1982
Warner Archive Collection
1949