And now for something completely different…
Genre: Movie/Stage Musical
Premise: The story of Alexander Hamilton… rapped.
About: Hamilton was a Broadway sensation beyond anything this decade has seen. Unfortunately, the only way to see it was to a) pony up 2 grand for a seat and b) locate a time machine, since Hamilton’s original cast no longer does the show. But since movies have been indefinitely canceled, Disney saw a unique opportunity to bring a hidden gem to the masses. They paid $75 million dollars(!) for the rights to broadcast a previously taped version of the Hamilton play on their Disney+ service.
Writer: Lin-Manuel Miranda (inspired by Ron Chernow’s book)
Details: 160 minutes!!!
How does a blogger
former screenwriter
GSU whore
and an irishman,
dropped in
the middle of a pandemic,
egocentric
slightly menace-
-ing guy, watch a play,
that they say
was supposed to be better than okay,
but it turns out it wasn’t even the best thing he saw that day…
Okay, that’s the first verse of my upcoming play titled, “Shadow.”
Let’s be straight up real with each other here. Is there any way something that has been THIS HYPED can live up to that hype? Everybody who’s seen this thing talks about it like it’s the stage equivalent of surfing on a rainbow while making love to a mermaid. Shakespeare himself would’ve quit had he seen Hamilton.
So I had high expectations.
To say those expectations weren’t met would be a Shakespearean understatement.
The plot here is basically Alexander Hamilton is an orphan who comes to this country with nothing and he wants to be a military general (I think) so he becomes George Washington’s assistant. From there, he marries a woman from a rich family to up his own status, even though he’s secretly in love with the woman’s sister.
The initial goal is to secede from England which Hamilton is determined to do. They achieve this, to which England’s king says, “You’ll miss me.” From there, it’s about trying to form the country’s first government. Hamilton works closely with Washington, who becomes the first president.
Eventually, Hamilton’s best friend, Aaron Burr (Leslie Odom Jr.) switches to a competing political party and the grudge is on. The two finally decide to have a good old fashioned duel. During the duel, Hamilton intentionally misses his shot (harkening back to the earlier song where he sings, “I’m not going to miss my shot,” in his pursuit of greatness) and, as a result, Hamilton is shot and dies. The end.
If you are a Hamilton fan, I strongly recommend you stop reading here. Almost everything written below will trigger you. Okay, are you gone? No? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
There are some things to praise here. The production value is amazing. From the costumes to the set to the lighting to the choreography to the line memorization to the dancing – all of that was a marvel to watch. We give so much praise to a movie director when he does an undisturbed eight-minute shot. Imagine doing that times 20. That’s what Hamilton did. It’s one continuous shot for 160 minutes. I can’t imagine how difficult that is to pull off.
Also, props to Lin-Manuel Miranda for coming up with this idea. This is one of those ideas when you’re a nobody pitching it to people, they look at you sideways. “Yeah, so I’m working on this play, right? And it’s about Alexander Hamilton. Do you know him?” “Isn’t he one of the guys who founded the Constitution or something?” “Yeah, so anyway, he raps. And it’s going to be a rap musical about his story. Cool right?” “Uhhhhh… yeah. Sure, buddy. Good luck with that one.”
To come up with something that original and to make it work – hats off to Miranda.
But while we’re in Miranda’s corner, let’s start with him. When Miranda first hit the Hollywood scene off his Hamilton success, I was confused. He just seemed like a normal guy. He didn’t have any star power that I could see. He didn’t seem to be that good of an actor. As far as I could tell, the only thing he was exceptional at was rap freestyle. So I guess it’s no surprise why he hasn’t succeeded in Hollywood. He doesn’t have any exceptional abilities.
But I was eager to see what all these Hollywood bigwigs saw in him when they watched Hamilton. I mean, this is the role that made him famous. There was no way this performance wouldn’t blow me away. And then I watched it and no blowing away occurred. At all. I was so underwhelmed by his performance. Again, he has average stage presence. He’s not a good singer. Most of the time, he looks out of place.
I was much more impressed by Leslie Odom Jr., who was stellar, and the guy who played the king. Every time they took the stage, I noticed I paid attention more. But the second Miranda came back, I found myself bored and my mind drifting. That may be sacrilegious to say but I’m calling it like I see it. To be honest, it felt to me like Miranda snuck into this show because he created it. If any one else had written this musical, there’s no way in a million years they would’ve cast Miranda.
Also, what you guys know about me at this point is that I need a good story. I need to understand what the hero wants and where we’re going. I want obstacles to overcome. I want drama. I want the major story beats to be a little unexpected to keep me on edge. Instead I got a rapped Wikipedia entry.
He did this. Then he did that. Then he married this. Then he went to war for that.
I mean I thought Christopher Nolan had an exposition problem. Hamilton is, like, 97% exposition. Sheesh.
And since everything was sung, a lot of the nuance of the story (if there was any) was lost. It was hard to keep up since rapping moves the speaking clip along faster. So if you miss even a verse, you could find yourself confused about what the scene was about. That happened often.
I kept checking where I was in the play and was routinely shocked. “I’m only 20 minutes in????” “It’s only been 25 minutes???” “It’s only been 27 minutes???” But it was how much time was left that was so daunting. If you’re 30 minutes in, you still have 130 minutes to go!!!! I was bored out of my mind by minute 20. Dancing, singing, more dancing, more singing, more dancing and singing, what comes next, oh, more singing and dancing! Good lord, somebody stab me in the face with a bayonet.
In fairness, I want to recognize that music is a very divisive thing. It’s right up there with comedy in that two people can listen to the exact same thing, and while one person can hear Bach, the other person can hear Gwar.
Cause when people talk about these songs being so great, I didn’t have that experience AT ALL. The songs all sounded pretty much the same to me. And I actually like rap. And while I’m far from a musical nerd, it’s not like I don’t appreciate musical music. When Rent came out, I would hum those tunes all the time. That, to me, was catchy song-writing. This just felt like a string of slightly varied upbeat tunes that allowed the characters to keep the rap coming.
Gosh, Carson, tell us how you really feel.
Okay.
I kinda hated this.
There’s literally NOTHING here I can relate to. The secret sauce with any story is to create characters who people identify with. They see something in the characters that they see in themselves. And because of that, they feel connected to the character. They want the character to succeed. That’s what drives their interest in the story. I don’t identify with going off to war. With dumping tea out of a boat. With trying to marry a high status woman to up my own status so I can rise in the political ranks. None of that resonates with me on any level.
I suppose you could make the argument that someone coming from nothing to make something of themselves is a powerful character journey. Yeah, but the problem is, like I said, Miranda is so underwhelming I didn’t care. Theoretically, that should’ve worked. But his barely average performance kept me from buying in.
You’re probably thinking I’m going to rate this a “What the hell did I just watch?” But Hamilton is too much of a spectacle for that rating. And I think that, somewhere deep inside, there’s some jealousy coming out in my review. I think all artists are jealous when someone comes up with something that so many people love and they, themselves, don’t understand. Cause it makes you doubt what you think you know about what people want. There’s a little of that “I DON’T GET IT” going on here. But all I can do is give my honest opinion about what I saw. And that’s that I was bored.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I was talking to a writer the other day about Rian Johnson’s “Brick,” his first movie. I specifically remember that film because it debuted at Sundance and, at the time, the prevailing thought was that you hyped the sh*t out of your film before you got to Sundance. That way buzz would build and, theoretically, it’d give you the best chance at selling your movie. Johnson, however, took the opposite route. His strategy was, “Let’s not hype our movie up at all and, that way, when people see it, it’ll feel more like they’ve found something special that nobody else knows about.” The strategy worked. Brick came out of that festival as one of the big purchased movies. I bring this up because over-hype probably influenced my review today. I was expecting so much that Hamilton couldn’t possibly give me what I wanted. So when you’re out there trying to promote your script, be strategic about how you talk about it. You always want to be confident. But if you hype your script up too much, it’s likely to have a negative effect. In fact, every time a writer has told me they’ve written the greatest script ever, the scripts have been bad.
