Good concept, poorly executed.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Burlesque achieved absolute greatness! I am a huge Cher fan, so naturally I just had to see this movie. Cher blew it away here, not only with her magnificent voice, but also with her acting! I saw where Cher was nominated for a Razzie for this film........ I don't know what those Razzie people were on when they decided that, or maybe they just didn't watch the movie, that's probably it! I didn't know a thing about Christina Aguilara before this movie, and now I can say I am a big fan! Her acting was spot on, her dancing was very sexy and exciting! Every burlesque dancer was unbelievably great and always spot on with their performances! Stanley Tucci handled his character wonderfully. I loved how they showed Tess's relationship with Sean, a very sweet and close friendship. And then there's Cam, I LOVED his character! There couldn't have been a better love interest! He was very sweet, friendly, warm and above all---sexy!! As the main love interest should be! The music was so electrifying! The dance moves were perfect! The whole film was just soo entertaining and enjoyable! Get your ass up, show me how you Burlesque! ;)

Several attempts have been made to re-create stories based upon The Star Is Born. A few of those have been based upon Burlesque theatrical dance. This movie is one of them. The burlesque style is essentially women dressed as prostitutes dancing provocatively on stage without exposing their bits.As a movie showcase for Christina Aguilera songs it succeeds. Christina is sweet then raunchy and performs her routines with the high quality visual sexiness we have come to expect from her music videos. This movie came after her Back To Basics album which explored a variety of 20th century dance and singing themes. In the movie she is joined by Cher as the club owner, who in my opinion, has the best ballad in the movie.In spite of the raunchiness, this is a movie directed at the female audience rather than at the boys. It is about woman having fun dressing up, applying their make-up and enticing men around their little fingers. There are no doormen throwing out troublemakers from the club and no fist fights let alone a gun. This is the opposite of say Roadhouse. Humour is provided superbly by Stanley Tucci.The song and dance acts are stylish, however the plot of the story is tediously predictable. You won't find a single surprise in this movie.Burlesque scores highly for it's imagery but it falls far short of the movie Cabaret as a story. Burlesque plays safe whilst Cabaret was a lot more edgy.

"Burlesque" is a 2010 musical movie featuring some nice numbers. Cher really shines not only with her performance, but also brings it all to the table with "Welcome to Burlesque" "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me". There's more musical numbers which work well such as the use of Madonna's "Ray of Light" or "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend". The latter, however, gets much worse when lead star Christina Aguilera (Ali) takes over. I totally wish they would have cast somebody else for that movie's central character. Her acting was mediocre at best and I am not a fan of her voice at all. It's all too much screaming for my taste. The only thing I can see going for her is that her looks are fine, better than most of the time during her pop music career. I remember always being more Team Britney when these two were the most influential new music stars. Still Aguilera looks good here. I found it a bit unrealistic though how such a girl has nobody how she tells us and her new boyfriend at one point. Apart from that, I did not find her really likable which she surely was intended to be. The way she tells Cher's character what to do comes of as pretty cocky and arrogant.Cher plays Tess, the mother figure to all the girls in her club and I loved her scenes especially with Stanley Tucci, who is great as always and manages with ease to make this character his own. The film takes place in Los Angeles, near Hollywood, where dreams are made. A dream of mine would have been that the sometimes very cheesy script could have been done slightly better. When she tells Gigandet's character they are not brother and sister is one such scene. The whole relationship triangle with his fiancée felt a bit weak and half-baked. Also Ali's reaction at the end when the fiancée suddenly shows up is way over the top. If he did do anything wrong it was that he ended the relationship via phone, but Ali knew that and the way she lost it and ran away was simply ridiculous. The way she ran to the rich guy afterward had something slutty even if it was only to find something out allegedly as we found out not much later. This one was played by Cam Gigandet, who you may know from "Charmed". For some reason I found myself cheering more for him than for Gigandet's character and that is quite a miss from the filmmakers. The negative highlight was maybe at the very end when Ali sang the song Gigandet's character wrote for her and neither the performance nor the lyrics did anything for me. At all. A very unworthy ending.I believe "Burlesque" with some fine-tuning on the script and another lead actress could have turned out as one of the best musical movies in recent years. You can't even blame Aguilera as she has not acted before, but she is really lost in her scenes with all these professional actors. I am usually not too big on Kristen Bell, but she was a revelation compared to Aguilera. What I liked about the film were the information on "bought air". I never thought about that, but it makes lots of sense, even if the final "Ali to the rescue"-twist is a bit cheesy. The film is written and directed by Steve Antin and it is his first really big project as a director. He wrote a Sharon Stone movie in the past and acted in "The Goonies", but you can occasionally feel that he lacks experience as a director while watching this. If there is anything the movie is really worth watching for, it is Cher. She has not acted in seven years before this came out and she has not forgotten anything. Pretty good turn from her. Her song "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" won Diane Warren her first Golden Globe (for her 5th nomination, almost 10 years after the last), but missed out on an Oscar nomination. Same goes for the costumes and art direction where the Academy usually likes to nominate or even award musicals. All in all it is a decent movie where the strengths slightly outweigh the weaknesses.

And I say that as an old fart who has never particularly liked Christine Aguilera, or her image or brand of pop (am I getting old?).It's not 'Funny Girl' or 'Cabaret', but it's a bit of a mixture of both, with some nice moments for the supporting cast - especially Stanley Tucci, who once again gets to play "the gay" in that interesting, undemonstrative style of his - and not much needed from the leads, who do their jobs as required.And if that sounds like a put-down, it's not meant to be. I enjoyed watching the film - it's just not up there with the ones I mentioned. And the business of it being too "Bob Fosse"-esque? Pah. If you're going to mimic, at least pick the best.My preference would have been for a few more classic lip-synced blues tracks; but at the end of the day, it's a nice story, well told. And it reminded me that, even with all that prodigious female talent on display: It ain't what you got; it's how you use it.