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Hairspray

Directed by Adam Shankman

Written by Leslie Dixon

Starring Nikki Blonsky, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Queen Latifah and I'll-tell-you-later

Classification: PG

Rating: **½

When John Waters made Hairspray back in 1988, he'd already thrown a dimmer switch on his patented "outrageous" quotient, considerably toning down the in-your-face satire and campy gay sensibility that brightened the likes of Polyester and Pink Flamingos. Sure, he was still casting Divine, but this picture — a paean to the emergence of teendom as a hot commodity in the early sixties — had an ebullient innocence, a positive racial message, and enough general uplift to fill the book of a Broadway musical. Indeed, so it came to pass. A musical version was born and jitterbugged off with a slew of Tonys, pretty much guaranteeing yet another resurrection: The movie based on the musical based on the movie.

And my but it's amiable, it's bouncy, it's got a sweet unknown in the lead flanked by a cast of bankable stars and, providing as it does an amiable and bouncy and sweet escape from a summer's worth of clunky blockbusters, it will no doubt be a counterprogramming hit, a finger-snapping crowd pleaser. But that's only at best. At worst, production number after production number are so lumberingly directed by Adam Shankman, the auteur who gave us Bringing Down the House and Cheaper by the Dozen 2, that they could serve as a How Not to Guide to the Movie Musical. Then again, who but cranky cineastes, their arthritic fingers frozen in mid-snap, really notice such things?

The bounce starts promptly, when Tracy our gleefully chubby heroine — think exuberant bowling ball with a towering bouffant and a happy face — rolls merrily out of bed, down to the city streets, up to a passing track, and onwards to school, all the while belting out Good Morning Baltimore. On the basis of this energy-bunny opener, I can promise you two things: (1) That newcomer Nikki Blonsky definitely has the pipes to manage Marc Shaiman's generically polished music, the toothy smile to show off Tracy's defiantly upbeat nature, and enough physical dexterity to handle Shankman's unchallenging choreography; and (2) That the tempo never lets up.

Yes, the place is Baltimore and the time 1962, post-Elvis but pre-Beatles, when every teen angel was welded to the TV watching the local version of American Bandstand — The Corny Collins Show, in this lively case, where the pretty white kids dance to homogenized covers of black "race music," while the poor black kids are relegated to the margins of once-a-month visits on "Negro Day." Naturally, being "different" herself, an empathetic Tracy wishes that "every day were Negro Day," and sets her mind to integrating the show. Turns out she has legions of support: Her Dad and Mom (Christopher Walken and I'll-tell-you-later) agree; her friend Penny (Amanda Bynes) agrees; so do heartthrob Link (Zac Efron) and Corny himself (James Marsden), not to mention Motormouth Maybelle (Queen Latifah) and all the nice black students who, incarcerated in detention hall, teach Tracy to boogaloo real funky-like. In fact, in a Southern city during the era of Bull Connor, about the only opponent of integration is the villainous Velma (Michelle Pfeiffer), the racist station manager. Given these proportions, you might wonder what in the name of Martin Luther King could possibly have slowed the Civil Rights movement, but such is the Disneyfied theme.

Everything else is song and dance, where — since equal opportunity is the spirit of the occasion — each principal in the ensemble is given a star turn. Pfeiffer warbles her invective in a saucy red frock, Latifah wails her anthem in a platinum-blonde do, Walken croons his ballad in a clown's checkered pants. Meanwhile, Blonsky and her black-and-white allies are never far from their next day-glo-bright musical outpouring. Speaking of which, Shaiman's contributions are as readily integrated as the theme. Whether early rock or R&B or gospel, the music is certainly tuneful enough, but it all seems cut from the same cookie dough.

But back to Shankman, whose approach to every number follows an unbending formula. Whenever remotely possible, he "opens up" the piece, moving his acting/singing/dancing triple-threats from the hallway to the classroom to the gym, or from the school lobby to a waiting bus, or from a juke joint to a leafy avenue (the exteriors were filmed in Toronto — for proof, look no further than the de rigueur Cancon cameo from Jayne Eastwood). Admittedly, this constant movement appears fluid, even cinematic, on the surface of things. However, what completely undermines that appearance is Shankman's chronic inability to shoot the damn scene. His camerawork is so stiff it should be interred in a pine box. Not only stiff but arrhythmic too — the performers are rocking out and the camera is tapping its toe against the beat. The effect is to stop the show-stoppers, or at least to have them fighting a perpetual civil war — an energetic cast versus a moribund lens.

And now I'll tell you: The plum and plump part of Tracy's mom Edna, played by Divine in the original and Harvey Fierstein on stage, falls to John Travolta. Well, it doesn't so much fall as plummet, given the severe gravitational pull. Travolta is buried under a fat suit so enormous it should come with border guards and passport control — his face is a lake of latex, his stomach a continent, his legs bulbous peninsulas. Worse, beneath it, he tries to act, to actually be a doting mother, serving up Edna in a girlish voice that defeats the drag-queen point of the role, its whole burly shtick. Worse still, beneath this bulk, he can't dance a whole lot, can't really dance much at all, and a potential charm of the movie — the chance to see Travolta hoofing up one more storm — goes begging.

Yet feel free (not that you need the encouragement) to ignore such carping. With the ABS system — amiable, bouncy, sweet — working so smoothly, and with the interlocking franchise — the movie, the musical, the movie musical — so firmly entrenched, my petty caveats may just be a matter of splitting Hairsprays.