Review – Newsies

If you locked Luc Sante and Andrew Lloyd Webber in a room and told them they couldn’t come out until they came up with a musical about turn-of-the-century newsboys going on strike against Joseph Pulitzer, this is likely what you’d get. And even so, the pair would be half-assing it so they could get it done as quickly as possible so you’d unlock the door and let them out. Fortunately for Sante and Webber, neither one of them had anything to do with this stinker. Unfortunately for Christian Bale, he can’t say the same. He must have a terrific agent, or Newsies would surely have put an end to his career. The songs are dreadful, the choreography is stiff, and worst of all the story itself, doubtless intended to be an homage to movie musicals from simpler times, instead comes across as hackneyed and dumb. See if desperate