Sister Act the Musical

On Saturday June 20th, the day after my brother arrived in London before our flight home, we went to watch Sister Act the Musical because our whole family had loved the movies so much when we were young.

Here's my review of the thing!

Location: London Palladium , where Sound of Music the Musical used to be. It's an alright location, being right off Oxford Circus. I don't go that way often because I absolutely hate the crowds around there, but on that particular day, my brother and I were at the Apple store checking out the new iPhone 3GS. The theatre was across the road from the Apple store, so that was great! :D

Storyline: Same old, same old. They'd changed a few things around, added some characters and abit more plot, but it was about the same basic plotline from the movie: lounge singer saw gangster boyfriend kill someone, goes to police, gets put in hiding with nuns, helps nuns via singing, bad guy gets caught, etc etc. I can't say I really loved the whole plot, but whatever I hated in the musical, I hated in the movie too. The new additions didn't take away or add anything to the whole plot, really, so I'm neutral about most of them.

Music: The songs are really good! Not at all the same songs from the movie, so don't expect to hear anything familiar, but it's all really nice. I loved the song that Mother Superior sang (Here Within These Walls) to the point where I can still remember parts of the song now - and considering how bad my memory is, that is incredible. There are some songs that are very obviously filler songs to bulk out the musical a little, but if you ignore that little fact, they're actually rather nice songs. Some of them have incredibly catchy sticks-in-your-mind-for-weeks tunes :D

Comparison: Well.... Compared to the movie... There are parts that are better and parts that are worse, but like I said before, all the parts I hated in the musical, I hated in the movie too. OH! Except for one part - they had this part with a disco ball and flashing lights that gave me this immense headache right there and then on the spot. Yeah, I hated that. They were lucky the song during that scene was nice, otherwise I would've just left.

My Rating: Hmmm..... As a production, I would give this maybe a 3.5/5. That 1.5 I took off was only because of the parts of the plot that I'd always hated in the movie anyway! :P

Recommendation: If you think you can keep your views fairly free of tainted expectations from the movie, then you should go ahead and watch it! Even if you don't like it (I've read many reviews, both bad and good), it's still a good experience. After all, it is very amusing! My brother and I had a good laugh at many parts, and we really LOVE Sister Mary Lazarus! :D However, just a bit of a warning: if you haven't watched the movie in a long time and can barely remember what goes on, I recommend that you do NOT watch the movie again to "refresh your memory". Just go in blind, and I think you'll enjoy it more :D


Okay, that's it for my review! If anyone else does go watch it, please review it too ^_^