Rent

Rent is best enjoyed singing it loudly at the top of your lungs, dancing until you break a sweat, and the collapsing exhausted against your couch with your best friends.

High hopes, flat results.

Chris Columbus, who managed to suck the magic out of the first two Harry Potter films, does the same with this adaptation.

The movie, directed without a personal stamp of any kind by Chris Columbus, is so slick that the grime comes from a spray can and the grungy bohemian costumes look rented from a Betsey Johnson boutique sale.

It's real -- and, on screen, it's really cringe-worthy. Not quite Phantom of the Opera cringe-worthy, but not as much fun to blow raspberries at, either.

There’s plenty of sparklers, costumes, and catchy choruses to compensate for the ham-fisted, turn-of-the-century melancholia. What’s more comforting than spending Christmas and New Year’s with a group of old friends, even if they’re on TV?

With Columbus in the driver's seat, the film meanders for two and a half hours, occasionally hitting a high point but mostly just slogging through, leaving an audience who has not so much enjoyed as endured the experience.

Features a great deal of infectious energy and some wonderfully choreographed musical numbers

Columbus' serviceable direction [makes] a solid film adaptation that should please fans of the original musical, and maybe even earn it a few new ones.