Cry-Baby (1990)

 Originally Written
Friday, August 24, 2007

I'm not a big fan of musicals... in fact I pretty much hate them altogether, anything staged with singing and dancing comes off as completely corny and unrealistic to me. So its amazing I ever gave Cry-Baby a shot, but I took a risk after seeing the trailer, which looked pretty funny and I'm a big fan of Johnny Depp.

 

Johnny Depp plays Wade "Cry-Baby" Walker a well known "drape" in a small town who got his nickname "Cry-Baby" after both his parents were killed. Walker falls in love with a well-to-do "square" Allison and the two of them spend the film trying to break the boundaries between thugs and the privileged in order to be together. It's your typical romance story of two young people from different sides of the tracks attempting to break the stereotypes of the society.

Cry-Baby has it's moments of humor, and the musical numbers were alright but frankly I would have enjoyed this film tremendously more if they had focused less on the singing and dancing and more on building an interesting story-line. The acting is quite mediocre, and extremely corny at times, also the film probably sets the record for some of the ugliest characters to ever "grace" the screen. Ricki Lake plays Cry-Baby's sister and looks like she is about to explode, Kim McGuire plays "Hatchet Face" which is almost a compliment (watch the special features on the DVD and you'll see they didn't have to do much to make her look rather repulsing), and Cry-Baby's grandmother is quite scary as well.

 

Overall, Cry-Baby wasn't my cup of tea, but I will give the film credit for putting on a descent show and being able to hold my attention for a majority of the time. The singing is completely lip synced so don't be suckered into thinking Depp actually sang any of his songs, that would have been a nice bonus though. In the end, if you like Grease you'll probably like is film it's the same only cheesier.

Available on DVD (Director's Cut)

6/10