The musical based on the rock band's 2004 album received lacklustre reviews that gave thumbs up to the music and talented actors but criticized the ordinary plot.
- April 22, 2010
AceShowbiz - Green Day's "American Idiot" musical has opened to lacklustre reviews on Broadway - with critics labeling the show "dull" and "ordinary". The production is based around the group's 2004 album of the same name, with a storyline worked out around the songs on the record.
The stage showed opened in New York on Tuesday night, April 20, but although critics praised the rock soundtrack, many were disappointed by the plot. Jesse Oxfeld, of the New York Observer, writes, "I wish I could tell you I loved 'American Idiot'. It looks good; it sounds good; it features a talented and hardworking cast. But I can't. It's fun. But it's also, amid all the booming rock, a little dull."
Peter Marks, of the Washington Post, adds, "The 90 minutes make for such stimulating spectacle... (but) 'American Idiot' comes across as ordinary. It's surprising how a show with enough imaginative candlepower to light a stadium can appear to have invested so little energy in illuminating its characters, or devising an involving narrative."
Joe Dziemianowicz, of the New York Daily News, concludes, "Thanks for the music, Green Day. But, jeez, couldn't you have spared a story? And a couple of characters who aren't cliched stick-figures? Because that's what a Broadway musical needs to make it more than just a music video or a concert. Unfortunately American Idiot comes up short on both those counts."
