1776 - 3 stars out of 10

1776 - 3 stars out of 10

For a musical, this musical certainly doesn’t have much music.  I’ve  never heard much about “1776” and I now understand why.  It may be historical, but there has to be a better way to portray history in musical than by having extensive scenes continue on for twenty minutes without a song.  The story (though not entirely historically accurate) is interesting and the acting brings it to life, but the musical just isn’t that good.  I think that there was a lot of wasted potential, both in the love story of John Adam and his wife, as well as the incorporation of historically recorded dialogue and letters into the script.  If the movie wasn’t 3 hours long, the content would have been fine.  But the excessive dragging on of the film left me wanting something more than “all guys, all the time.”  I spent an hour listening to John Adams speak and couldn’t stop thinking “I know that voice, it is so familiar… who could it possibly be?”  And then it hit me like a bolt of lightning (Ben Franklin pun intended), IT’S MR. FEENY!!!!  I guess that there was life before “Boy Meets World” for him.  His acting was wonderful and, though his character was a bit annoying, that’s the part that he needed to play.  I love the interaction between Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson, particularly in the song “But, Mr. Adams.”  Without question, that was the highlight of the film… and it was all downhill from there.  “1776” has its magical moments as one of the most important moments in United States history comes to pass, but I’d rather see a dramatic interpretation than this comedy masquerading as a musical by throwing in a song ever once in a while.