“Chicago” (2002) was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture. The movie stars Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere, and Queen Latifah appears in an important supporting role. I have never seen a stage production of “Chicago,” and I missed it on the big screen during its theatrical release, but when I watched it at home recently on DVD, I found it very entertaining. The DVD provides a feature-length audio commentary track with director Rob Marshall and screenwriter Bill Condon, and there’s also a deleted musical number called “Class” performed by Zeta-Jones and Latifah.
I laughed a lot while watching “Chicago,” and it contains about 15 song-and-dance numbers. However, the filmmakers didn’t want the story to stop while the musical numbers are performed, and lovers of traditional musicals might be disappointed. I see the movie as more of a comedy with musical numbers than as a musical.
I’m not sure of the exact reasons why, but “Chicago” didn’t completely pull me in on an emotional level. I never got caught up in this film the way I did in, say, Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge.
