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Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do The Time Warp Again

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The Rocky Horror Picture Show was one of my favorite movies growing up. Those kids in the audience singing along, chanting and throwing things, yeah, I was one of them. Been there, done that too many times to count. So, I was excited to watch this movie for my critique. But that excitement quickly disappeared when the movie started.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again tips its hat to those roots with an usherette (Ivy Levan) welcoming costumed fans into a midnight screening of the new movie. The show occasionally cuts back to the audience during the production to see those on-screen audience members reacting to what they're seeing. Instead of replicating the wild joy of the actual crowds who still flock to midnight showings to shout at the screen, myself included, it only serves to heighten the artifice of the whole ordeal. The charm that went along with the original was wiped out and replaced with Fox’s Glee-ified style.
We’re introduced to Brad and Janet played by Ryan McCartan and Victoria Justice. While they don’t embody that joyful square-ness of the original cast, they still have an innocence to them. Laverne Cox stars as Dr. Franke-n-furter and while I usually love her, the performance was sub par. The whole production had a very vanilla, High School Musical vibe (possibly because the director Kenny Ortega directed …show more content…

You can tell Kenny Ortega was trying to liven it up and bring it into the 21st century, but once again it had the cheesy flash of a Disney production. Ortega was focused on capturing the weirdness of the original movie but either forgot, or unsuccessfully acknowledged the campiness that was such a huge part of the originals success. Despite the flashy and athletic performances of the high kicking cast, something was clearly lost in transition. The energy level of the performance was about 4 notches down from what I was expecting and at least 2 from the rest of the

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