It's no wonder movie musicals are practically dead. Adam Shankman takes otherwise fun stage shows, sucks the joy out of them and prevents them from feeling remotely filmic. The casting here is atrocious aside from a fiendishly delightful Catherine Zeta-Jones, who knows just what movie's she's in while everyone else is being much, much too serious. She steals the movie with "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," making it potent and delightful, despite the scene itself being terribly photographed and edited. Tom Cruise and especially Russell Brand and Alec Baldwin come across badly.
