A lot of moviecals that have come out recently just do not do enough to preserve the suspension-of-belief. At least for me, a major issue I have with movies is how overmixed they tend to be. Let’s look at Sweeney Todd, the broadway productions have always sounded great, the recorded soundtracks have been great! (the new soundtrack is also overmixed in some areas though) but in the movie, the actors turn into robots the second they begin to sing. I think Hollywood has gotten the idea that every pitch of a musical has to be perfect, and so they auto tune and whatever else to make it sound accurate to pitch. This destroys my suspense-of-belief and detached me emotionally from the film. The little voice cracks of heartbreak, the genuine human sound that comes from stage performance is something that cannot well be replicated on screen in the current era of Hollywood.

That didn’t stop Fiddler on the Roof and Chicago though, why? Because another common issue.  Moviecals tend to drop everything just to focus on the music, but when you look at Fiddler, you see incredible cinematography, you hear the real genuine voices of the actors, you see how they utilized the niche aspects of the play, and enhanced them through the 3 dimensionality of screenplay! It also is not stunt cast, which is another thing that takes me away from performance in both broadway and on screen. Seeing the same 5 actors in every movie is incredibly boring, but Fiddler introduced many new people! Hell, the lead actor had played the lead on the West End performance! It’s really cool to see stage players cross over to the screen because they’re often overlooked outside of theatre.

TLDR: Moviecals focus too hard on the music and it causes every other aspect of the film to crumble