Chicago

Chicago's so engrossing that you even forget to reach out for the Coke n' popcorn. Now isn't that entertainment!

In effect it is filmed theatre, but this brings its own compensations: the more fake Chicago looks, the more real it seems to get.

What makes this more than a film of a great stage show is the way that the action spills seamlessly from the stage sets into real life. Magic.

Whatever one's qualms about the material, its execution here is rock solid in ways that keep on impressing, right through to the niftiest end credits sequence in years.

As a reproduction of the stage show, Chicago isn't bad, but it makes no persuasive case for itself as a film.

Bawdy, funny and exhilarating, Chicago is great entertainment.

A couple of songs were left behind and I find the rat-a-tat editing distracting from the performances and musical numbers.... [T]he mercenary spirit and the splashy musical numbers, however, give the entire cast their moment in the spotlight

Marshall revitalises the genre by imbuing its past with new life, respectful and panegyric at the same time.

Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones are incredible as the murderous pair imprisoned for their wrongdoings.

Not only for theater aficionados, Chicago is a musical for people who don't even like musicals, weaving its deliriously dark tale with enough cyanide-laced cynicism to win over folks who wouldn't know Oklahoma! from Oh! Calcutta!