Hairspray: safe, clean and sanitised

Hairspray, choreographed and directed by Adam Shankman (PG)

There is a bunch of things you need to do before you see this movie.

1. Forget there was a raunchier version which came out in 1988 and included a pot-smoking Pia Zadora. Nothing like that in 2007. This is clean, clean, clean.

2. Forget that in 2002 there was an award-winning Broadway musical based on the original film which was a wonderfully raunchy and adult romp.

3. Realise that the target audience is somewhere between girls in their first year at intermediate, older girls anywhere up to year 10 - but whose world hasn't moved on from first-year intermediate - and anyone who still gets off on Farrelly brothers fat-suit funnies.

4. Realise that this is post-Democrat US being sanitised but making sure the film will turn a buck for the investors.

5. Realise that if you begin to think logically about any of the "serious" stuff, like race relations, you will probably go blind or drive into a brick wall, or both. And you cannot simply dismiss it by saying this is just a fun movie so no one needs to think, because this flick really does play the race card for cash.

6. Understand that this, although set in Baltimore, is actually an apology for the much vaunted Texan love affair with obesity. It is also an apology for fat, which will strike some Kiwis as bizarre, not because body shape is the issue, but because chubby star Tracy Turnblad, played by new find Nikki Blonsky, is unable to dance because she is so strapped into her clothes. Remember Robert Helpmann's comment about dancing in the musical Oh! Calcutta! "The trouble with nude dancing is that not everything stops when the music stops." Well, there's an alternative. "When the music starts and Ms Blonsky dances, nothing moves." She sings well, but dance? Not a chance.

So, leaving aside some pretty effective marketing, the question arises - why has this been a box office bonanza in the US? It's the very entertaining and skilfully constructed combination of foot-tapping, singalong music and the absolute simplicity of characters and ideas.

The jokes, apart from one or two acid one-liners from Michelle Pfeiffer, are whoopie-cushion farts and predictable teen turns.

The storyline, set in 1962, has the chubby daughter of an even larger mother - John Travolta in a badly fitting fat suit - and skinny father, who is a rather bemused Christopher Walken, failing at school because her mind is set on joining a dance group. Regularly in a detention class almost entirely filled with black students, she learns to dance, joins the integration movement, and appears to become the sole catalyst which allows integration to occur in the US.

None of the messages have any bite. None of the characters, most of whom are cliched reinventions of early rock wannabes, are worth the box-office dollar.

The dancing, however, and the music, will be a foot tappin' winner for yo'all girls and boys who have been a waitin' for this great spectacle and can put on yo' US of A headgear and be at one with the culture. Yeah. You will so love it. Most of you will swing, sing, ding-a-ding-ding along to the music and not give a sausage about the quality of the movie. Maybe that's the way it should be. It is certainly what the studio wants.

Movie Meter: 3/5

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