Directed by Bill Condon | Written by Condon, from the book of the stage musical by Terrence McNally, and the novel by Manuel Puig | 129 min | ▲1/2

Jennifer Lopez has claimed she’s always wanted to be in a musical, and here it is. For those who recall the Hector Babenco drama 40 years ago starring William Hurt, Raul Julia, and Sônia Braga, this is an entirely different creature. It takes more from the hit Broadway show, starring newcomer Tonatiuh as Molina, the hairdresser jailed with political prisoner Valentin (Diego Luna) and pressured to extract information from him.

Instead, Molina entertains his cellmate, retelling the plot of his favourite movie, the titular Kiss Of The Spider Woman. The movie-within-the-movie features Jennifer Lopez in dual roles as Aurora, a famous actor, and the mysterious Spider Woman, who is basically death herself, both characters delivering full-on song-and-dance numbers in the technicolor musical sequences, with Tonatiuh and Luna along for the ride.

Bill Condon is a veteran of successful stage-to-screen projects like Chicago and Dreamgirls, but this film is strangely lifeless. He makes the in-prison segments as artificial and stagey as the musical numbers, which undermines any authentic political weight the film might carry, as well as the thematic power around art and storytelling as freedom and escape.

Further, there’s a strong queer text here, but the idea that gender expression is also an avenue to freedom is badly muddled. Worse, the dramatics are turgid and dull — with little chemistry between Tonatiuh and Luna. That leaves Lopez to save the day, and for a few moments here and there she does. For true fans of the Broadway musical Jenny From The Block herself, there may be more here to appreciate than this reviewer was able to glean. Certainly, for a lady in her mid-’50s she hasn’t lost a step since her fly girl days and she convincingly makes the Kander and Ebb numbers her own, even though, the Spider Woman’s theme excepted, none are especially memorable.