There is a blast of true soul power in Eddie Murphy’s performance as a James Brown type.

| Aug 22, 2022

Neither thought-provoking nor entertaining enough - remains largely average and underwhelming.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 24, 2019

You may not be expecting this from a musical, but Dreamgirls is one of the most fast-paced, frenetically-edited, roller-coaster rides of a movie that you'll see all year.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2007

Few pictures can match the glamorous pull of Dreamgirls. Bill Condon's first big musical since Chicago is a glossy, gleaming Cadillac of a film with a vintage rhythm and blues engine tuned to perfection. The cast is dressed to kill.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 5, 2007

The opening rump-shaking immediately sets the tone: Dreamgirls pulses with sheer exuberance. When was the last time a musical, much less a huge Hollywood production, felt this alive?

| Original Score: 4/6 | Feb 3, 2007

There is no single person or story to centre the drama around, and Murphy's performance, though widely liked and indeed now Oscar-nominated, is for my money flatly written with very little of the high comedy octane of which we know he is capable.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 3, 2007

The songs themselves aren't memorable so it helps greatly that they're delivered with gusto. Condon tries to pack too much in, however, and energy flags slightly towards the end. Ultimately it's Hudson's passion that keeps the dream alive.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 30, 2007

Ardent, accomplished, overwhelmingly emotional, with something to say and a dream cast saying it in song. Bravo.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 29, 2007

It reserves singing and dancing for the stage until Jamie Foxx just randomly bursts into verse while strolling down the street. Dreamgirls wants to be Effie but ends up as Deena: thin, smooth, unburdened by a personality.

| Jan 25, 2007

[Condon] is one of those rare directors who can make theatricality work on film. Rather than stifling it, he embraces it, and the result is sheer exhilaration.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 20, 2007

Watching Dreamgirls on the big screen feels like an event somehow. Maybe it's the conviction and passion that the actors bring to their roles.

| Jan 3, 2007

Dreamgirls is the entire musical package, a triumph of old school on-screen glamour, and we wouldn't want it any other way.

| Jan 3, 2007

Elegiac, filthy-minded, unsparing, and as deeply moving as you'd expect from any de facto story of Peter O'Toole's life.

| Jan 3, 2007

Watching Dreamgirls is like being on cloud nine.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 30, 2006

It's a product that promises magic, and yet gives us nothing to live on.

Full Review | Dec 30, 2006

...An uneven success.

| Dec 29, 2006

With a star turn like [Jennifer Hudson's] at its center, a movie doesn't need too much more, but Dreamgirls has plenty to go around.

| Dec 29, 2006

Dreamgirls wraps you up in its music, like a velvet coat of sound, and when it's over you feel warmed, happy and thoroughly entertained.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 29, 2006

Flaws and all, Dreamgirls is certainly a lot more watchable than other recent adaptations of Broadway musicals like Rent, The Producers and The Phantom of the Opera.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 29, 2006

Joy is defined as Dreamgirls, an ecstatic dose of pure top-down Motown tight-harmony effervescence that takes a hit Broadway musical about a Chicago girl group and turns it, miraculously, into a Hollywood delight.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 29, 2006