| | | "Winner of 6 Academy Awards, Including Best Picture."
Winner of six Academy Awards (2003) including Best Picture, and starring Academy Award nominee (Best Actress, Chicago) and Golden Globe winner (Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, Chicago) Renee Zellweger (Bridget Jones's Diary), Academy Award winner (Best Supporting Actress, Chicago) Catherine Zeta-Jones (Traffic), Academy Award nominee (Best Supporting Actress, Chicago) Queen Latifah (Bringing Down the House), Golden Globe winner (Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, Chicago) Richard Gere (Unfaithful), and Academy Award nominee (Best Supporting Actor, Chicago) John C. Reilly (Gangs of New York) -- Chicago is a dazzling spectacle cheered by audiences and critics alike! At a time when crimes of passion result in celebrity headlines, nightclub sensation Velma Kelly (Zeta-Jones) and spotlight-seeking Roxie Hart (Zellweger) both find themselves sharing space on Chicago's famed Murderess Row! They also share Billy Flynn (Gere), the town's slickest lawyer with a talent for turning notorious defendants into local legends. But in Chicago, there's only room for one legend! Also starring Lucy Liu (Charlie's Angels).
"...uniformly splendid, right down to Gere's tap dancing." Bill Gallo, Dallas Observer
"Queen Latifah is sensational!" Dallas Morning News
"...eye-popping color, bold personality and snazzy tunes...a breathtaking experience." Kim Morgan, Portland Oregonian
"...the zingiest, most inventive movie of its kind since "Cabaret."" Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun
"The best picture of the year!" USA Today
Editor's Note
This Hollywood adaptation of the classic Broadway musical sparkles with glamour and reverberates with the energy of good, old-fashioned song and dance. As the film leaps into its first riveting act, Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), one half of the famous number she performs with her sister, arrives at the night club late, disheveled, and with blood on her hands. Nonetheless, she goes onstage unhindered and wows the crowd with her shimmying rendition of "All That Jazz." Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) a young blond who dreams of someday being famous like Velma, watches from the audience with eyes full of envy. Later, as the cops pick up Velma for the murder of her sister, sending her fame to all-time heights as she becomes a tabloid sensation, Roxie also commits a crime of passion--shooting a lover who falsely promised to secure her cabaret debut. The girls wind up together in jail, where Mama Morton (Queen Latifah), a compassionate guard, is their only hope of redemption; and Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) is the lawyer who can get them out. There, through wonderfully familiar songs like "Razzle Dazzle," "Cell-Block Tango," and "Cellophane Man" Roxie and Velma tell their story of competing for bad-girl celebrity.Director Rob Marshall presents a loveable CHICAGO that shares all the grit and grime of the Bob Fosse Broadway original with phenomenal performances by this grouping of Hollywood stars. The dizzying camerawork and dazzling sets make an easy transition from stage to film.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | This Is A Blu-Ray DVD Made For Blue-Laser Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture And Sound |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Buena Vista |
| Release Date: 11/21/2006 |
| Running Time: 113 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2002 | | Catalog ID: 5353203 | | UPC: 00786936725575 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, Spanish Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 1.85:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Winner (2003) | | | Golden Globe, Chicago, Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy | | | Golden Globe, Richard Gere, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy | | | Golden Globe, Renee Zellweger, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy | | | Oscar, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Best Actress in a Supporting Role | | | Oscar, Martin Richards, Best Picture | | | Oscar, John Myhre, Gordon Sim, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration | | | Oscar, Colleen Atwood, Best Costume Design | | | Oscar, Martin Walsh, Best Editing | | | Oscar, Michael Minkler, et. al., Best Sound |
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| | Professional Reviews | Los Angeles Times
"...It's Zeta-Jones who keeps you watching from start to finish....She refuses to let you go....If musicals are dreams, she is their greatest dreamer..." 12/27/2002 p.C8New York Times
"...It's the raw expenditure of energy and the canniness of the staging that should pull audiences in and keep them rooted..." 12/27/2002 p.E1 USA Today
"...CHICAGO shows how much the element of surprise is missing from today's movies....It's part of the basic Zeta-Jones bio that she can really sing, and, wow, can she..." 12/27/2002 p.7D Rolling Stone
"...Zellweger wins our hearts. That's what makes her dangerous. Just like the movie....Dynamite..." 01/23/2003 p.76 Film Comment
"...Zeta-Jones, all legs and growls, has found her calling card..." 01/01/2003 p.73 Box Office
"...Fresh and daring....Queen Latifah and John C. Reilly are the surprise standouts..." 03/01/2003 p.59 Movieline's Hollywood Life
"...[The actors] deliver sizzling performances....This tawdry, hard-as-nails carnival of ghouls generates plenty of fireworks..." 02/01/2003 p.62 Sight and Sound
"...[Jones] makes nightclub singer Velma a droll fishnet virtuoso..." 02/01/2003 p.41-2 Variety 8 of 10
A stylish cast and some clever scripting solutions help "Chicago" make the transition from stage to screen with considerable appeal intact. But despite these assets, plus the enduring kick of the superlative Kander & Ebb song score, this film version dilutes a good deal of the live show's sizzle and wit...Viewed in terms of its attempt to resurrect the musical as a contemporary film genre, "Chicago" is way ahead of lifeless blunders like "A Chorus Line." But it's arguably less buoyant or inventive than recent unconventional, and artistically controversial, tuners such as "Moulin Rouge" or "Dancer in the Dark"...Marshall's choreography retains some distinctive Fosse influences, particularly in the opening "All That Jazz" number -- nevertheless hampered more than any other song by excessive cutting away from the dancers. - David Rooney
ReelViews 9 of 10
The movie represents good, solid entertainment. It's not nearly as rousing as the Broadway revival (then again, it's rare that the cinematic version of a musical comes close to the stage incarnation), but, for those unable or unwilling to see a live production, it represents a sparkling replacement. The film strikes a nice balance between the lavishly overproduced likes of Baz Lurhmann's Moulin Rouge and the less openly flamboyant movies from the '50s. The style, by intention, echoes that of the late, great choreographer Fosse...The nine or ten song-and-dance numbers allow us to enjoy Chicago on a less cerebral, more visceral level than might be the case if this was not a musical, but there's still a fair amount of substance to be considered. It's a pleasure to note that the return of the movie-adapted stage musical is such an unqualified success. - James Berardinelli
Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
"Chicago" continues the reinvention of the musical that started with "Moulin Rouge." Although modern audiences don't like to see stories interrupted by songs, apparently they like songs interrupted by stories. The movie is a dazzling song and dance extravaganza, with just enough words to support the music and allow everyone to catch their breath between songs. You can watch it like you listen to an album, over and over; the same phenomenon explains why "Moulin Rouge" was a bigger hit on DVD than in theaters..."Chicago" is a musical that might have seemed unfilmable, but that was because it was assumed it had to be transformed into more conventional terms. By filming it in its own spirit, by making it frankly a stagy song-and-dance revue, by kidding the stories instead of lingering over them, the movie is big, brassy fun. - Roger Ebert
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