Newsies

I am sure that most of you when you read that I was going to do a theme week with reviews of Christian Bale movies figured I would start out with either Batman Begins or Dark Knight. I decided I would throw a curve at everyone and review the 1992 Disney musical Newsies. I am sure most of you may not even remember that Christian Bale starred in this musical. For me this is a movie that never gets old no matter how many times I have seen it. It is just a solid movie that does not disappoint. While this seems like a great story it is great to know that it is based on actual events and Disney does a fairly decent job at keeping the story close to what actually happened.

With a great ensemble cast that all play so well off each other, in typical Disney fashion they give us a great villain played by Robert Duvall. Duvall does not disappoint and plays the big, greedy businessman perfectly. I think though the star of the film was the true surprise as Bale does an amazing job of not only just acting but also delivers on the singing and the dancing. The singing is believable as well in such a way that you almost buy into the fact that the real newsies may have sung to sell the papers.

The music of this musical, while I am not the biggest fans of musicals is nothing but catchy. I find myself that on any day that if any of the songs somehow pop into my head, it is stuck there for the rest of the day. The great part about it though is that the songs are very well written and really portray the story and even help keep the movie pacing moving. For me personally I think "King of New York" is probably my favorite song that actually gets popped into my head a lot. The biggest shame from Newsies though is that while the movie is very solid it did not do very well financially and it is very surprising for that with a Disney movie. Unfortunately both of Kenny Ortega's movie that he directed with Disney struggled financially at the Box office.

While most may think musical, it must be lame that is not the case because Newsies delves up its fair share of action. There are a couple of fights, and the newsboys use a lot of slang and slurs from that era that just make me chuckle. The movie delves up its own comic relief moments throughout. The character of Crutchy along with Pulitzer deliver the most one liners that help make such a dramatic story of a David and a Goliath lighthearted.

Newsies is a fun, action packed, musical that can be enjoyed by viewers of all ages, no matter what mood you are in. Newsies has the ability to take someone from having the worst day to wanting to even sing along with the movie. I am giving this movie three and a half buckets of popcorn out of five and it really is the movie that helped to let Hollywood know that Christian Bale would be an actor that would have to be reckoned with. this is definitely a great family movie that is well worth finding and adding to your own movie collection.

-The Movie Man-