Review: Evita (1996)

Few things are as resoundingly disappointing as when a great musical gets a terrible movie adaptation. And, in a moment that is rather ironic, just like 2004's The Phantom of the Opera, Alan Parker's 1996 cinematic rendition of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's 1976 rock opera Evita is an overblown, slow moving, sorrowfully inept attempt at taking an incredible dynamic and explosive play, and translating it to screen.

The direction by Alan Parker, who has done good films before, is sadly simply too slow and lumbering for the film. Where's the original rock opera has a sense of wild, kinetic energy, the film version is instead slow and doddering, and very much a product of its time. It lumbers along for two hours, slowing the tempo of the music down, and often reorchestrating musical numbers from the raw, Rock Band/London Symphony Orchestra combo of the 1976 concept album to a swath of mid-90s smooth pop sound. Gone are the snarling and shrieking guitars or piercing keyboard work, instead replaced by anonymous sounding guitar licks, and synthesizers. The orchestral backing lacks the grand sweep of the London Symphony Orchestra, instead just sounding like any other studio orchestra, with no real sense of self or personality.

The music, in and of itself, is awesome music. There's a reason that the original play has held its own in the long history of Broadway. Lloyd Webber is a man of great talent, and Evita (especially the original 1976 recording), is possibly his most inspired musical work. However, as I stated before, the reorchestration and attempt at trying to make it "bigger" means that it looses that original raw punch that the seventies hard rock of the original provided. Tim Rice's lyrics, however, remain mostly unchanged, with any lyrical deviations taken from the 1978 Broadway production.

The central flaw is, of course, that the film is badly performed. Madonna has a good voice (she is Madonna after all), but her smooth pop vocal stylings pale in comparison of the explosive fanaticism that Julie Covington embodied in the original 1976 recording, or the Broadway Diva flamboyance that Patti LuPone showed in the original 1978 Broadway cast. Madonna's performance is simply too "nice" for Evita, and she lacks the pure acting chops to supersede that.

Paradoxically, Antonio Banderas, one who you wouldn't expect to be a singer, does a surprisingly good job as the narrator (who happens to be named Che). His thick Spanish accent can be a tad distracting at times, but he's still far more alive in the part then Madonna is, and along with the always dependable Jonathan Price, make up the best parts of the movie.

Darius Khondji does a fair job at the cinematography, but his heavy use of sepia helps contribute to the overblown, overwrought atmosphere of the film, and makes it feel heavier then it otherwise might have felt.

Now, on the subject of historical accuracy, one should note that the original concept album (and therefore the movie itself) took inspiration to the biography of Eva Peron called The Woman with the Whip, which took most of it's information from anti-Evita sources. Now, I'm not saying the real Eva was this perfect angel or anything, but apparently, the real Eva wasn't as ambitious or abrasive as this cinematic interpretation. So, knowing that, the film slips a little. But, if you approach the musical as simply the unreliable narration of the characters, then one can easily enjoy the musical as a piece of entertainment, which I myself do.

But alas, this film is an immense disappointment. The original 1976 recording is possibly one of my favorite albums ever, and I cannot recommend it enough. It's on Spotify, so I suggest you give it a listen if you can find the time. In the meantime, avoid this movie. It sadly lacks the fire and explosive energy of the original, and instead just plods along, and is terminally boring, the worst sin a movie can commit.

1 star.