Movie review: Gleeks rejoice! ‘Glee: The 3D Concert Movie’ delivers the songs

For so-called Gleeks who can’t get enough of their favorite singing, dancing, emoting high schoolers and starry-eyed Broadway wannabes from the popular TV musical melodrama, now comes the in-your-face “Glee: The 3D Concert Movie.”

Glee clubbers on stage

As a market saturating offshoot of a ubiquitous pop-culture phenomenon, this documentary look at the show’s cast members on their recent U.S. summer concert tour is definitely preaching – or better yet, singing – to the choir.

Hardcore fans will obviously groove to every familiar tune and every jazz-hands move of McKinley High’s Glee Clubbers (the actors stay in character throughout) on the concert stage. Non-fans might take the more jaded view that this is simply a crass way of extending the show’s commercial brand from the small screen to the big.

While it might seem fashionably cynical to mock “Glee” for its relentless peppiness, its perhaps naïve but hopeful embrace of tolerance and its gosh-darned earnestness, the show has no doubt touched many people’s lives in positive and inspiring ways.
An underlying theme of “Glee” – aptly reflected in its multi-colorful cast – is that it’s OK to be different. Students white, black or yellow; plain, homely or beautiful; skinny, buff or full-figured, populate the cast and are individually given moments to express their doubts, fears and hopes and to shine in the spotlight.

The concert film plays much like a highlight reel for the TV show, with favorite cast members having their moments. There’s Quinn (Dianna Agron) typically playing the diva; Rachel (Lea Michele), doing her Barbra Streisand thing; Blaine (Darren Criss) playing the dark heartthrob; Mercedes (Amber Riley), the big girl with the big voice; Artie (Kevin McHale), tipping his cap to the handicapped, the openly gay Kurt (Chris Colfer), his sweet voice dripping with longing, and so on.