Les producteurs

One has to compare this with the original and it just does not cut it. Lane is pretty good in this but have seen him much, much better. I like Broderick usually but this performance is embarrassing. Will Ferrell is his usual overrated self-there is not a funny bone in his body!! Uma Thurman is wasted in this .I have been told that the stage play is great, so perhaps a straight filming of the Broadway production might have been a better idea (after all Into the Woods worked brilliantly as a simple filming of the stage). Incidentally I love musicals so that was not my problem. The original film was just so great and the performances by Mostel,Wilder and Mars were incredible and incredibly funny that any remake just had to suffer by comparison. The only way in which the new version might have shaded it were the stage numbers which looked great. A nice try but they shot and they missed.

Imagine watching a play, but the over-the-top acting that gives an audience 50 feet away a connection to a play's actors, is painfully irritating when watching it 6 feet away on TV, or blown up on a movie screen. Bad. Bad. Very very bad , in a movie format. At least the songs, while novel, had music that was entirely forgettable. While this may have been a fine musical play (though I doubt it, and I enjoy musicals) it was irritating as a movie. The characters dialogue was not comical- simply over the top (like the acting) and bizarre - intended to be funny simply for the crude, crass degree of bizarreness.

Unless you get into watching mediocre musicals on film, I'd pass this one by.

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.

I am a huge fan of the original movie and had the pleasure of seeing the wonderful Broadway show in 2003, so I was more than expecting to love this remake. Unfortunately it didn't live-up to my expectations on a number of fronts.

Most fundamentally, it seemed more of a cinematic rendering of the stage show than a remake of the movie - the problem is that it utterly lacks the charm of the 1968 film, and fails to capture the excitement and energy of the show. This is not to do with the actors, who all put in great performances and do the best job possible with their roles. Though, I wonder if it was a good idea to keep the leads from Broadway - playing a part on stage is very different from doing the same thing in a movie. This is at the heart of what is wrong with this movie - it is trying to be cinematic and theatrical at the same time.

Also, they have cut some of the funniest scenes and changed some of the best lines from the original. Why, I wonder? For example, the first encounter between Max and Leo in the original movie is hilarious and dramatic - a magnificent opening set-piece, with drama, humour and conflict. In this version, Leo just knocks on the door and introduces himself. Bit of a damp squib, really.

Overall, I am not sure what to make of this movie. I would probably have enjoyed it more if I had not seen the original. But not much.

Much better than anyone had the right to expect. Lane and Broderick are superb. Even moving. Look what I'm saying, moving. I mean it. Their commitment is contagious. The comedy in itself is shamelessly anachronistic. The gay jokes belong to the period in which the original Producers were conceived. The tone is consistent with that period, the film happens at an incredible pace and you smile from beginning to end. How marvelous to see Matthew Broderick dance. This is an actor who never had an Academy Award nomination and his performances have always been top notch and his range runs the famous gamut from A to Z. What a courageous actor. I couldn't believe he could get away with the "I'm in pain! I'm wet and I'm still hysterical" scene without making me miss Gene Wilder but he did. Nathan Lane is a force of nature. His Max is very much a tribute to Zero Mostel, especially to his hair but this Max is Nathan Lane through and through. Uma Thurman is a delight and I had a great time at the movies. What else do you want out of life.