Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Claire Dunne One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

mark.waltz This film version of the biggest Broadway musical in decades couldn't be filmed and kept for posterity any other way. The team of Mel Brooks and Susan Stroman kept the remake of Mel's 1968 classic totally a camp riot, as pretty and witty and gay as they could possibly be. For those like me who couldn't score a decently priced ticket with original stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick got a chance with the film version. I was lucky in getting a ticket to the Los Angeles production with Jason Alexander and Martin Short, but the legendary team of Lane and Broderick was the dream of many a theatrical fan's impossible dream.Who'd think that anybody could rival the stars of the original, Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, but Lane and Broderick are their equals. Most of the original Broadway cast got to repeat their roles as well with Gary Beach and Roger Bart deliciously stereotypically gay as a lousy director and his "common law" assistant. Brad Oscar and Cady Huffman weren't as lucky, replaced though by two fine substitutes, Will Farrell and Uma Thurman. I normally can't stomach Farrell, but he's delightfully obnoxious as the playwright of the deliciously tacky "Springtime For Hitler". Thurman fills out the part of Ulla, the Swedish chorus girl who has the need for sex every day at 11, and us told by Lane and Broderick to report to work at that time. (Something tells me that they'd be done "rehearsing" by 11:05.)The chorus is mainly filled by mainly Broadway notables, including Brent Barrett, Peter Bartlett, Karen Ziemba, Andrea Martin and Debra Monk, although for some it's a blink and you'll miss them situation. Even the aging Mel Brooks gets in on the action, utilizing his voice for several parts.I've read reviews which claim that thus was "too theatrical", but how else should a musical comedy be filmed? I love the fact that this is also not afraid of going down dangerous paths with parodies of certain races and the gay lifestyle that are stereotypical and obviously true in some cases. It was nice to see all that laughed with rather than scorned. This is exactly what a big movie version of a smash hit Broadway show should look like, big and brassy in the 1950's and 1960's way, but with modern sensibilities.

bkoganbing A little more music and embellishing of several plot points that were passed over in the original film are what distinguishes this musical version of The Producers. It's a musical version about a film that had a plot about two men who try to create the biggest flop in the history of Broadway and a musical.Taking the places of Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder as the producing partners Bialystock&Bloom are Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. Both these guys are given an impossible task of repeating two classically congruent performances that Mostel and Wilder created. Even the additional bits of business just can't make me forget the original. Will Ferrall did not come over from Broadway to do the role of the hermit like Nazi living in Greenwich Village and caring for his carrier pigeons. He had to do double duty because he also took the place of beatnik method actor Dick Shawn from the original. I'm not sure that combining the roles was the best thing, I'm also not sure Ferrall did real justice to either try as he might on both. Kenneth Mars was the reclusive Nazi author of Springtime For Hitler. in the original. Both he and Shawn were almost as memorable as Mostel and Wilder.I do love the Mel Brooks humor, but I think he laid it on a bit thick with the gay stereotyping of Gary Beach and Roger Bart. It came this close to the good side of being offensive, but not quite.There's a lot to like in this version of The Producers, but I think Mel should not have touched his masterpiece.

Mr Black I was totally disappointed by this. I'm a big fan of both Mathew Broderick and Nathan Lane,, but wow, this really was a stinker.!!!! It was totally over acted - like watching a cheesy Broadway farce or something. If they had both played it straight with a comedic touch this could have been a great film. Too much over the top with the intended comedy. Too bad,, i have to blame this one on direction. Although the sets and scenes were pretty cool as was the costumes and art direction. But all in all,, just not good. Sorry guys,, really have to give this a thumbs down, and i'm disappointed at having to do this because i really love both of these actors.

brianjmichaels I knew going in I probably wasn't going to love this. After all, I find Mel Brooks "comedies" to be the lamest, lowest-common-denominator style of comedy, full of unfunny puns and slapstick overacting. But I like musicals, so I thought I might at least get some enjoyment out of it. I should give it a shot.It's even worse than I thought.The first scene with Lane and Broderick, which seems to go on for about half an hour, is agonizing and interminable, I almost turned it off (again - I started watching it once LONG ago and never made it through that scene), but I powered through and kept watching. The movie never got much better. The songs themselves are slightly less awful, but the rest of the film is just too rooted in bad, laughless Mel Brooks style. The performances are equally painful, even from some of the otherwise-decent actors. It's so overdone and exaggerated - fine if you're playing to a large live theater, but in a movie that kind of exaggeration is not needed and just comes across as dumb.