"Burlesque"
is not bad enough to be good camp, though it tries, or is it good
enough to be a salute to all the old Hollywood musicals that the writer,
and director, Steven Antin incorporates into the film, using all the
cliches from those films. Along with choreography by Dennis Faye and
Joey Pizzi saluting Bob Fosse, "Cabaret" and "Chicago" nothing really works in this film, including a ridiculous, out of place cameo by Alan Cumming.

Sadly for Christina Aguilera she is making her movie debut opposite a champ and Cher knocks her
flat. The former sings 7-8 songs that she makes all sound alike by
shouting them, twisting notes, and words, to be unrecognizable  while
Cher knocks her two songs out of the ballpark not only allowing her
line-less face to enunciate each word but to put feeling behind them! When she sings "You Haven't Seen The Last Of Me" you want to cheer.

Cher's partner in crime, Stanly Tucci, as her gay assistant and friend, makes the other male co-stars look and act as cardboard cutouts. Cam Gigander, as the younger good guy pursuing Aguilera and Eric Dane as the older bad guy, also pursuing her, show skin with the younger one showing a lot more skin.
The latter would have shown a lot more sense going after Cher! Cam does
have a funny 'strip' bit showing his butt and toned body but it's not
enough to save his performance.

There
are sequins, feathers, wigs, sparkles, mild bumps and grinds, corsets,
garters and old movie story lines to make "Burlesque" bad enough to be a
hoot but it doesn't and isn't.

Now it is time for Cher to get serious about her acting career again after letting it go by the wayside while Aguilera should stop making movies after this feeble performance of hers and just make videos.