Watch Evita For Free

That was an excellent one.

Good concept, poorly executed.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Beautiful music. I watch it every few years. Still find it is one of the best.

Evita is a musical from 1996 directed by Alan Parker and based on two things: the life of Argentine First Lady Eva Péron, and the 1978 Broadway musical Evita by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Both the movie and the musical tell the same story: the life of Eva Péron from being a businessman's illegitimate child to being the wife of Juan Péron, the president of Argentina and becoming the most beloved and the most hated woman in the country.Now hearing that story, it might sound like an original screenplay from Hollywood, but I think that the very fact that it's based on a true story is part of the appeal, proving that truly anyone can rise to power, just look at Donald Trump :(The first question of quality for the movie, being a musical is, are the songs any good? And the answer is yes. They are very good. One of the things that strike me about the songs is that whenever the film needs to show a very long span of time, you can show it with a song and a montage, for example Eva's multiple lovers and the political history of Argentina in the 40s. This would be much harder to make compelling and interesting and related to the plot in an ordinary biopic. But Rice or Webber or Parker of whoever realized that they could use the songs to their advantage. So, congratulations!Another important thing about musicals is, can the main actors sing, and the answer is again yes. No matter what you think of Madonna, you have to admit that the can sing. And I want to really show my respect for Madonna, because this wasn't a case of the producers going "We need a star! Get Madonna, because people know her and will help at the box office". It was actually Madonna who was really pushing to get the role, she took vocal lessons, she did research on Evita and Argentina, and I think that demands respect. The rest of her filmography may not be that impressive, but she did very well in her role, and that's all I ask.So we knew that Madonna could sing, but what was really surprising to me was Antonio Banderas as the narrator Che (yes, in the play it was supposed to be Che Guevara, but they changed it for the film). Man, can he sing, and sing well. One thing that I also really liked about Banderas portrayal of Che is that he can be really funny and entertaining as Che. I honestly think that his performance was Oscar worthy.Parker's direction and production was also really impressive, especially because it was a musical made on such a grand scale. You can tell that they spent a lot of money on the production, especially with regards to the extras. This I think is some of the best work from movie extras, it appears as if they actually care about what they're doing and how it's going to look on the big screen.If I could criticize anything, I think it would be with some of the lyrics in the songs that I find questionable. For example, at one point in the song "Peron's Latest Flame" about peoples misgivings of Juan's relationship with Eva, the soldiers sing about officers and sing "as long as they're discreet and keep clear of disease", like what do they mean? Are they talking about syphilis?So besides some lyrics that I was not fond of, the film is overall an entertaining musical with good performances, an impressive big scale and good songs.My final score, 7/10.

I had seen many stage productions of Evita before this film version came out and was delighted by Madonna's performance, because she captured Eva Peron so well.However the changes from the stage to the screen were horrific. I have heard many of these were to gain the approval of the Argentine government for location filming. If so, they should have shot it elsewhere.Gone was the "Che" character (which was merely a chorus anyway as Guevara has no real connection to the Perons) but the replacement by Antonio Bandaras made no sense as he had to be coached. His voice was "okay" but fell in comparison to Madonna.Lyrics were changed, "softened" to make Eva less of a self-serving type, more approachable. Peron was not cast so much as a fascist (which he was) and Eva was less power-mad.It probably mirrors better the way Argentina would LIKE Evita to have been, but not what she was.

I had first heard about Evita through a parody: "SCTV" did a parody ad for a musical called "Indira" about Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi (portrayed by Andrea Martin) which had her singing "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" with Slim Whitman (Joe Flaherty) warbling the male part before segueing to another song. I then saw the actual commercials for "Evita" with, I think, Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin doing those songs I previously saw spoofed on that "SCTV" spot. So over 30 years later, I finally watched the film version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical with Madonna essaying the title role. She's quite good singing songs different from her set list especially on the one original song for the movie-"You Must Love Me". Having her veer from caring to shallow and back was also partly natural especially considering the contradictory versions of Evita's life I read about recounted on Wikipedia after seeing the movie. So, yes, she deserves high praise for taking this role and gets much help from both Antonio Banderas as Che and Jonathan Pryce as Eva's eventual husband, Juan Peron. In summary, I highly enjoyed Evita.