13: The Musical

I have not seen the Broadway musical from 2008 that 13: The Musical (2022) is based on, so I do not know if it is better than the movie version. Because I thought 13: The Musical (2022) was ok.

The acting was not that bad, like Eli Golden playing the main character Evan and the other characters were good. The characters were likable enough so you can get behind them, but they make decisions that made no sense.

The songs were fine even though I do not think they are worth listening to repeatedly, but they are fine for what they are. The dance numbers have good dance choreography, and the actors are good in them.

I would have liked the musical numbers to be a bit more spaced out, because they would have a song play right after another song ended. There are moments I thought could have last longer or moments that should have ended but kept going.

Other than those issues, 13: The Musical (2022) was a standard enjoyable enough musical to watch for a 1 hour and 31 minutes. You do not have to rush to Netflix to see this.

...but I didn't like that they took out half the songs.

The one good thing they did change though is that the popular kids weren't absolute jerks to Archie though. Growing up, disabled kids were completely off limits to even the worst bullies.

The acting's pretty good but subpar in some scenes, although the kids do a really good job for their first lead/supporting roles! It portrays high school nowadays pretty well. The soundtrack has some good tunes and the casting is diverse without it being forced.

But these things can't fix the main issues of this movie. The pacing is fast and quite off-putting; songs after songs can be tiring, relationships fluctuate every scene, you name it. The dialogue can be a bit forced and dramatic at times. There are also a bunch of weird cinematography & editing choices within this movie that I can't bother getting into.

Evan's Jewish identity also gets quite undermined in this movie, which was a huge part of the story both in the musical and in the book. Most parts of the movie also say a lot of things about Jewish culture (bar mitzvahs being parties and nothing more) which aren't necessarily true.

All in all, a decent movie that had a lot of potential but failed to meet it.

This somewhat follows the original story from the past Broadway musical, the music is good and the cast is super talented. Where it falls short is too much was changed from the musical, the story falls short. It doesn't leave the audience with anything to think about, it's just generic.

Overall, 5/10.

The show has changed way too much for this to be called an adaptation. I wouldn't have minded the changes in lyrics but the storyline was revised too much that the entire flow of the story changed. They failed to capture each character. The show started well, which is the main reason I stayed to the end. The movie revolved in Evan getting everyone to go to his party without regard to others. The Broadway told a totally different story. The movie is far from being called an adaptation.