"Hairspray" Review

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'

That's what Bob Dylan said back in the 60s, and it's also the underlying message of Hairspray, which is set in the same era. Christopher Walken's character even offers a pearl of wisdom along the same lines in the movie.

Based on a Broadway hit based on John Waters' cult film about racial equality in Baltimore, this musical follows the lovably plump Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky) as she dreams of becoming a dancer on the hippest dance show on TV: The Corny Collins Show. Her weight poses to be a problem, of course, as well as her support of racial integration. The station manager, Velma Von Tussle (Michelle Pfeiffer), is determined to keep her TV station blonde, thin, and most importantly, white.

Hairspray, despite being positively tacky and falling short on delivering the message it sought to deliver, is still a big blast of fun that almost never stops being cute. Imagine, if you will, the saddest, sappiest, most manipulating, violin-strumming, tear-jerking chick flick. Then picture the exact polar opposite. Well, that's Hairspray, the movie that is so gay (both meanings) that it's simply bursting with rainbows (both meanings).