Badge Film Blog

Flick Teaser: your trailer-based primer on forthcoming releases

Burlesque: Stripping the light fantastic with Cher

Christina Aguilera is just a small-town gal trying to make it as an unclad dancer. Can Stanley Tucci help? Stuart Heritage analyses the trailer

One of the worst crimes that a movie trailer can commit is giving away too much about the film that it's meant to promote. Witness the trailer to Free Willy, which ends with Willy being freed. Or the Soylent Green trailer, which asks "What is Soylent Green?" and then shows us Charlton Heston staring agog at a people factory. Or the trailer for The Sixth Sense that's introduced by Bruce Willis, with a bedsheet over his head, saying "Hello, I'm Bruce Willis and I died several years ago."

  1. Burlesque
  2. Production year: 2010
  3. Country: USA
  4. Cert (UK): 12A
  5. Runtime: 119 mins
  6. Directors: Steven Antin
  7. Cast: Alan Cumming, Cam Gigandet, Cher, Christina Aguilera, Eric Dane, Kristen Bell, Stanley Tucci
  8. More on this film

And now we can add the trailer for Christina Aguilera's Burlesque to the list. It shamelessly rattles through the entire plot from beginning to end, ruining the big surprise that (SPOILER ALERT) Aguilera can sing reasonably well. But let's pretend that you haven't already guessed everything that happens over the course of the film – here's the entire story of Burlesque, as told by its own trailer.

Burlesque 1

1) Christina Aguilera is just a small-town girl with big dreams and, by the look of it, one lazy eye. She travels to Hollywood to make her fortune as, oh, probably a dancer or something.

Burlesque 2

2) On her first night in town, Christina visits the famous Burlesque Lounge. Some say it's just like the fabled Moulin Rouge, except nobody dies of tuberculosis and you don't have to put up with Ewan McGregor massacring Elton John songs in your earhole all night.

Burlesque 3

3) Once inside, Christina is seduced by all the sexy dancers and out-of-focus cocktails on show.

Burlesque 4

4) Oh, and the trombones. Christina Aguilera is also seduced by the trombones.

Burlesque 5

5) Her head filled with possibilities, Christina manages to track down Pete Burns, the owner of the Burlesque Club. She tells Pete her dreams of becoming a dancer, and Pete says "I'll tell you what I'll do, go and speak to The Exact Same Character That Stanley Tucci Played In The Devil Wears Prada. He'll sort you out."

Burlesque 6

6) But sadly it isn't to be. The Exact Same Character That Stanley Tucci Played In The Devil Wears Prada tells Christina that she's just too dowdy to be a dancer, and sends her away.

Burlesque 7

7) However, Christina Aguilera didn't get where she is today (an unemployed, possibly homeless, wannabe pseudo-stripper, remember) by taking no for an answer. Undeterred, she takes a waitressing job at the club, to study the dancers and wait for her big, long-awaited shot at glory.

Burlesque 8

8) But then – oh no! – Christina blows her big chance, by waddling around in circles and quacking like a duck for five hours instead of performing a short dance like she was supposed to. It looks like Christina Aguilera's burlesque dreams are over, unless...

Burlesque 9

9) Unless she can gather together the courage to walk onstage one night, dressed up like a partially-inflated vinyl sex doll designed for a very specific type of pervert, and make a sort of "HUAAAAAAOOOOUGH" noise that sounds like a sack of animals being tipped down a well. Only by doing this will Christina Aguilera fulfill her burning ambition and become the professional burlesque dancer that her daddy possibly always wanted her to be.

Burlesque 10

10) And then Naboo from The Mighty Boosh partially takes his sunglasses off. The end.

Today's best video

Latest reviews

More from Trailer review
