Various Artists Hairspray:The Soundtrack Review

Billed as this summer’s feel-good family film, Hairspray is the movie of the hit Broadway musical based on the original 1988 film by cult Baltimore director John Waters. But, just like the summer, the Hairspray soundtrack proves a bit of a let down.

The casting sounded promising. Queen Latifah hits all the right notes - sassy and soulful - as Motormouth Maybelle, and Michelle Pfeiffer is deliciously icy as scheming TV mogul Velma Von Tusselle, cha-cha-cha-ing in (“The Legend of) Miss Baltimore Crabs”. But John Travolta – star of that other cult retro musical, Grease – disappoints in an underplayed and resolutely masculine drag role as Tracy’s plus-sized mother, Edna. You can’t escape a note of desperation in his voice, despite a gift of a line like “It’s been years since someone asked me to dance”. Tracy herself is played by 18-year-old Nikki Blonsky. She’s vocally expressive and thoroughly likeable, but lacks the larger-than-life charisma the role requires. Listening to the final track, ''Mama I’m a Big Girl Now’', which features the three Tracy actresses together, both Ricki Lake from the original film and Marissa Jaret Winokur from the Broadway production sound much stronger. Tracy’s friend Seaweed, on the other hand, played by Elijah Kelly, sparkles as the voice of segregated black Baltimore.

There are several new songs written specially for the film. They’re catchy enough but depressingly formulaic, especially the Supreme-esque “The New Girl in Town”.

In fact, the whole production feels short of energy. It should be brash, blowsy, and alive with musical wit. Instead it feels over-coiffured, lacking the kitsch necessary to carry off the pastiche. Less a towering beehive than a bouffant gone slightly limp in the summer rain.