Post by spooner5020 on Oct 14, 2020 13:12:01 GMT
I'm not really sure why Disney thought they could remake something as perfect as the Music Man, but yet they did. I still can't believe Matthew Broderick was professor Harold Hill. Talk about miscasting. I understand Broderick had wanted to play Hill for years and if I was correct they didn't even audition and cast him on the spot. Auditioning probably would have helped. So the movie was trying to get me to believe that Broderick was a con artist? Lol. Every time he spoke and acted I was reminded of Simba and not in a good way. I mean honestly no one can replace Robert Preston he made Harold Hill. When I watched Preston I was drawn to him and I believed he was actually serious about trying to teach kids music. Broderick couldn't convince me in "Ya Got Trouble". If he couldn't sell me there he wasn't gonna get me to believe him anywhere and he never did.
Kristin Chenowith bless her. She deserved SO MUCH BETTER then this. I could tell she really tried to get this movie to work. In a better version her Marian could have probably worked. She needed someone who could match her talents and Broderick just couldn't match it at all.
I couldn't stand David Aaron Baker as Marcellus either. I couldn't believe how much he screwed up "shipoopi", but yet he managed to find a way. They really couldn't find someone like Buddy Hackett or were they purposely trying to screw up this movie? I just thought he had no personality in this at all. I don't know why Disney decided to hire this guy I never even heard of him until this movie. I gotta believe he's better in other things, but this was just a bad movie for him.
Everyone else I thought was ok. I think that's the problem with the casting for this movie. The actors who are usually pretty good were just ok in this. Victor Garber who I know is much better than this played Mayor Shin like he just didn't give a shit and I can't say I blame him for not really putting his all into this. Molly Shannon I thought was actually decent and captured her character quite well which is more than I can say for anyone else.
The songs were...ok I guess. I don't think there was a version of the song that matched the original's take or did it any better. The only one that it seemed like they tried with was "76 Trombones" and maybe because they knew it was the biggest song of all. The only thing really holding that part down was Broderick. Again he just could not sell that part at all. It almost kind of hurt to watch because everyone else in that scene is somehow MILES ABOVE Broderick. I felt like in the original everyone was on Preston's level during that song and in this one it's Broderick trying to get to their levels and THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THE CASE!!
I know this was also a tv made movie and this came out around a time where Disney was doing tv movie versions of musicals I think the first one being Annie from 1999 (correct me if I'm wrong) and Annie was actually decent and in my opinion better than the original Annie. I don't think that gives it the excuse to be bad. If Annie could work there was no reason Music Man couldn't have worked as well.
Music Man just proves the fact that just cause you can remake something does not mean you should.