‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ review: Jennifer Lopez’s movie-musical is another disappointment

nypost.com:

“Kiss of the Spider Woman,” based on the Tony Award-winning 1993 Broadway show by John Kander and Fred Ebb, has its work cut out for it from the opening credits.After all, two of the greatest movie-musicals ever made were adapted from that legendary duo’s oeuvre: “Cabaret” and “Chicago.” Both of those stylish hits are, for good reason, enduring Best Picture winners.I doubt cinema-classic status will be the path for wobbly Ms. “Spider Woman,” which premiered Sunday night at the Sundance Film Festival.

Caught in her web, I was not. Yes, star Jennifer Lopez’s singing and dancing wow as silver screen goddess Ingrid Luna. That’s her forte, so no shock there.

And newcomer Tonatiuh, playing gay prisoner Luis Molina, is a vulnerable and charismatic find.But “Dreamgirls” director Bill Condon’s off-putting movie is a visual and narrative mess: polished where it should be gritty and ugly where it must be glamorous.

Bland, almost always. The story from Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel exists in two opposing worlds. Harsh reality is the cramped, dank Argentinian prison cell during the 1981 Dirty War that Molina, a flamboyant window dresser who’s a chatty optimist despite having been dealt a cruel hand, shares with cranky political dissident Valentin (Diego Luna).