Who's in it: Anthony Rapp, Adam Pascal, Rosario Dawson, Taye Diggs
The Basics: Thirty-something actors re-create their 20-something Broadway selves in this freshly scrubbed vision of grimy bohemia, junkies, AIDS and jazz hands.
What's the Deal? First of all, the music has always sucked. It's not rock and roll. It's Broadway show-tune normalcy with some guitars and lyrics about sex toys. Then there's the hack director, Chris Columbus, who's stuck for the rest of his life making movies that look and feel like Mrs. Doubtfire. And finally, there's the cuteness of the AIDS. Half the characters have it, and none of them looks sick enough to get a doctor's note out of P.E. — much less to kick the bucket while singing.
What's Good About It: Exactly 1½ songs. The one about how "there's no day but today" is nice. Also the "what about LOOOOOOOOOVE" part of the "525,600 minutes" song. The late Jonathan Larson, who wrote the stage version, was not bad at those group-sing choral moments.
Who's Surprising: Dawson, as Mimi, the heroin-addicted stripper with AIDS, transcends her skinny, pretty self with some very nice singing. She also makes you forget that she works in the same strip club that Jennifer Beals worked at in Flashdance, the one where men pay good money to see women create elaborate choreography scenarios but never take off their clothes.
Movie You Won't Be Able to Stop Thinking About During the Big Opening Number in Which Everyone in the Cast Sings/Shouts, "Rent-rent-rent-REH-HENT-rent!": Team America: World Police
Movie That Didn't Exist in 1989, When This Film Is Set, But That They Reference in a Song Anyway: Thelma & Louise
Hey, Go See an Opera Instead: Just in case you were still unaware, its source material is Puccini's La Bohème. They all die of TB in that one.