Jersey Boys

[Beate]

I am officially getting annoyed with the lack of London locations for the Jersey Boys screenings!

[funthing29]

There were a plethora of celebrities at the gala screening last night with a very entertaining performance by the West End cast prior to the film.

I saw the stage show again quite recently so it was fresh in my mind. Therefore this film is the show completely converted to a film (no 'based on' or 'inspired by' here), it is the book of the musical turned into a movie script with a lot of the same dialogue verbatim. Some of the things that work on stage have not translated as well to screen. The film itself was OK but too long and didn't quite capture the magic of the show (in my opinion). The cast had great vocals and it looked and felt authentic but it was far too dreary and serious and lacked the fun and spirit of the stage show. I will not dwell on the make-up, wigs and prosthetics in the second half...

7/10.

[elski]

I will not dwell on the make-up, wigs and prosthetics in the second half...

as soon as they appeared I suddenly remembered the issues with J Edgar...

[Celini]

really? I actually thought it was so much better make-up/prosthetics wise!

I haven't seen the musical but I quickly realised that it was a straight adaptation, some bits should have been edited out as in the end they don't bring much to the story.
I checked the time the first time after 70 minutes :/

7/10

[chelle1973]

I had the choice of three films last night(not showing off ) and I chose this one. I'm going to overlook some of the dodgy acting but I thought this was really good! My mum loved it so thats always a bonus! I've not seen the stage show though my mum & dad have and he felt like walking out, hated it! While mum enjoyed it............men huh? this gets an 8/10 from me.....loved the bit at the end

[jeanelle]

Not as good as the show but the songs were still great and it does tell the story which my +1 wasn't aware of. Great night out with a row full of FMUKers.

PS I grabbed some spare glossy tickets if anyone forgot to pick one up on the way out.

[asamaic]

I went to the Piccadilly screening - call me stagey, but throughout the whole thing I kept thinking, I wish I was seeing the show instead. I've never actually seen the stage version, but I felt it would probably have been better. I don't see why the film had to be that long.

Agree re the dodgy prosthetics.

[D-Fens]

Surely the whole point of a movie is to show, not tell but this is just a series of characters telling you about more interesting things that happened. It's excusable on the stage because there are obvious limitations and they still have the songs but the movie seemed almost embarrassed by the music it had to work with.

[canadian_turtle]

Opposed to previous comments I actually enjoyed the movie a lot more than I did the stage show! I always love seeing the cast perform but I found the show (which admittedly I did see 1.5 years ago so I may be misremembering) rather dull in comparison. Whereas the movie gripped me from the start and despite its length (I felt it in my body moreso than that I was bored at any stage) I was engrossed from start to finish.

The cast was fantastic, I loved all their performances and my only nitpicks would be that Frankie so very clearly didn't look 16 at the start and yes the make-up/wigs, particularly towards the end, were distractingly laughable. Other than that this was brilliant and the night was definitely made even better by the live performance of the West End cast beforehand.

8.5/10

[biggins]

A fun movie although a bit too long especially on such a hot evening making it so stuffy in the cinema. Have never seen the stage show but enjoyed the film version and loved the end scenes. 7/10