Film review: ‘Glee: The 3D Concert Movie’

This will be slightly spoiler-ish.

As a Glee fan myself, ‘Glee: The 3D Concert Movie ‘ was rather enjoyable, I love the characters and the songs they cover as well as the original ones, so yes I was singing to the top of my lungs at the theater. Mind you, it was 11:35pm showing on Friday night and it was just me and my two friends and three other people.
I thought we were going to see the concert in full motion since the concert didn’t make a stop in Florida, I’m expecting a movie that is kind of like ‘Lady Gaga Presents: The Monster Ball’ that aired on HBO a couple months ago, in which fans who had not been to The Monster Ball could see every aspect of the show and feel as if they were in the audience. Meanwhile, with ‘Glee: The 3D Concert Movie’, it started off with “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Sing” and I’m thinking “Yes! We’re getting the whole concert experience” until they started to show way WAY too many fan reactions. Kids, adults, teenagers, everyone was saying which one was their favorite character and why. The movie focused on 3 fans and after they would show 1 or 2 songs that the cast performed, they would go back to their stories. I can’t recall right now the fans names, but I know one of them was gay and said how Kurt and Glee helped him out to never be afraid to stand up for himself and what he believed in, a girl who had some anxiety disease (I think) and that with the help of Glee she was able to overcome that and be social and have friends and her love for Brittany S. Pierce, and the last one was a girl who is a cheerleader but here’s the catch: she has dwarfism and her story is basically how one of the jocks from school asks her out to go to prom and she’s nominated for prom queen despite her size. While the stories are rather cute and show the impact that Glee has done in people’s lives, every fan who’s going to see the movie knows this already, I just hoped they would have kept them short. I know I’m coming off mean and all, but in a way I wanted a movie in which I could appreciate the whole concert experience, maybe get a little of backstage access to see the cast get ready to perform and yes some fan reactions would have been nice but it took away half of the movie. There should have been 2 movies made: ‘Glee: The Concert 3D’ and then ‘Glee documentary: The Glee Effect’ in which they could show fans reactions, experiences, show schools that nowadays have Glee clubs, etc and I could tell you right now I would have gone to see both because I love Glee and the message it sends to young people, but I was dissapointed at the fact that they didn’t perform so many songs because they were focusing on fans. And yes, I get it that Glee is all about the fans, but it sucks paying $15 to see an infomercial.

One of the fan stories that I really liked was the one with the Mini Warbler which is way too adorable. In case you haven’t seen the video here it is:

Songs like “Single Ladies”, “Like A Prayer”, “Halo/Walking On Sunshine”, “Beth”, “Smile”, “Baby Its Cold Outside” which are some of my favorites, were unfortunately not in the movie. But yes, I enjoyed the Warblers perform “Teenage Dream” and “Raise Your Glass”, as well as Gwyneth Paltrow coming on stage performing “Forget You”. I felt like tearing up when Kurt (Chris Colfer) was performing “I Want To Hold Your Hand”.  Brittany (Heather Morris) performing “Slave 4 U” was just jaw-dropping! She’s fantastic dancing to this song. Santana (Naya Rivera) performing “Valerie” was very cute, as it was when Artie (Kevin McHale) walked out in his Michael Jackson red leather jacket with Mike (Harry Shum) performing “P. Y. T”. Finn (Cory Monteith) got the crowd moving with “Jessie’s Girl”. I was super excited to see Artie (Kevin McHale) step out of the wheelchair he was in the whole show and perform “Safety Dance”. One of my favorites that I wished it was longer was “Lucky” with Sam (Chord Overstreet) and Quinn (Dianna Agron). “Don’t Rain On My Parade” by Rachel (Lea Michele) was magical as her voice is.

Needless to say, the 3D is barely there, just makes the movie more HD, in some scenes you could see like Lea Michele’s microphone in your face or the slushies splattering on the screen but that was pretty much it. We know you want those extra $5….

Overall, I don’t think someone who isn’t a Glee fan will pay to go see this movie (duh), but in my opinion it could have been better and it could have included more songs, I just wished that the fan reactions/experiences were kept short. I recommend this movie to any Glee fan out there who wants to basically sing in the theater, but go in knowing that when you pay $15 to see this in 3D, half of the movie will be focused on the fans. I say wait for the DVD and enjoy it at home or just look up videos on YouTube from the concert.

‘Glee: The 3D Concert Movie’ is out in theaters.