Gene Kelly...
...would have LOVED this movie! Great choreography. A really good, feel-good musical.
shareActually, if Kelly were alive today and was shown this films, he'd bitch that there was no real dancing.
He'd probably say something like "In my day we could DANCE, now they just get pulled around on ropes! And what was wrong with their singing voices? They sound so flat, in my day we could really sing grumble grumble get off my lawn you rotten kids...".
Choreography = movement, whether it's swinging on ropes, stomping in rain puddles, dancing with CGI elephants or shuffling with a cartoon mouse.
"And STAY off my lawn, little brats!" :-)
And Kelly would've been RIGHT. Constant cuts, music videos instead of numbers, completely overblown and
unmemorable songs.
However, I'd wager Kelly would've enjoyed "La La Land", which is an incomparably better film.
IMHO Gene Kelly certainly would have loved the opening number, which was awesome, but he'd have found the sight of Gosling and Stone trying to dance painful to behold.
I found the dance numbers to be a pretty sad sight, and I'm not one of the all-time great experts on film dancing.