Hairspray: Critic Reviews

Hairspray is a fizzy and delirious high-camp message-movie musical that may just turn out to be the happiest movie of the summer.

That Hairspray is good-hearted is no surprise. The surprise may be that this Hairspray, stuffed with shiny showstoppers, is actually good.

Hairspray looks like it's sending up the straight, heterosexual world, but it also resembles a big, brightly coloured closet which declines to reveal its contents.

It's hard to keep a smile off your face and your toes from tapping during this unpretentious and spirited adaptation of the stage musical by director/choreographer Adam Shankman.

The real star of this Hairspray is director-choreographer Adam Shankman.

Against all expectations, Hairspray turns out to be an explosion of industrial-strength good cheer, delivered by very smart show-biz pros with wit, passion, and a soupcon of dementia. Resistance is futile.

Adam Shankman's Hairspray is a great big sloppy kiss of entertainment for audiences weary of explosions, CGI effects and sequels, sequels, sequels.

The movie is a throwback to MGM musicals of the '50s. But it's a giddy, unselfconscious throwback. That in itself is refreshing.

Marc Shaiman's peppy music conspires with Shankman's energized, retro-musical choreography to make for a giant cinematic grin -- a dimpled dental testament of faith in the powers of nice over nasty, tolerance over bigotry and aerosol over the ozone.

Hairspray is one of the most enjoyable translations of a Broadway musical to the big screen ever.

Hairspray is an infectious aerosol comedy with nearly every hair in place.

Adam Shankman's movie of the Broadway Hairspray gets better as it lumbers along, but there's something garish about its hustle -- it's like an elephant trumpeting in your face.

Hairspray is perfectly pleasant -- I smiled to myself all the way through it -- but it's not as exhilarating as the show.

Hairspray is just plain fun.

As mile-high-wig musicals go, the film version of Hairspray is less polished but more fun than Dreamgirls. Both are drag revues at heart, one funny, the other serious. I prefer the funny one.

With its wisecracking screenplay, period-perfect pop score, and Shankman's splashy choreography, this may be the funniest, dancingest screen musical since Singin' in the Rain.

This movie musical about the plus-sized white girl who shakes her way onto a segregated teen dance show and brings black high-schoolers with her is a laughing gas.

Hairspray is a playful, kitschy, sweet but snarky tribute to the era of sky-high bouffants, TV dance parties and desegregation.

Hairspray is a wondrously entertaining ball of spunky musical numbers, talent set free and fun, fun, fun, with just enough of a message to make it sizzle all the more. Don't miss it.

Only a die-hard grump could resist the giddy charms of Hairspray.

When Hairspray slows or stumbles, which it often does, the direction and choreography (both by Adam Shankman) pull it back together fast, and it keeps on trucking.

It's one of the best Broadway-tuner adaptations in recent years -- yes, arguably even better than those Oscar-winning ones. Unpretentious, feel-good pic is low on histrionic diva wailing and MTV-style editing, high on retro movie-musical craftsmanship.

A rousing alternative in a marketplace packed with noisy, special-effects-heavy sequels, Hairspray is the best and most entertaining movie adaptation of a stage musical so far this century.

It's a toe-tapper to make your forget sashaying pirates, comic-book heroes, robot Camaros and cartoons. This is the movie event of the summer.

At the risk of sounding as manic as Corny Collins, Baltimore's answer to Dick Clark, this latest screen incarnation is guaranteed to flip your wig.