Rent!

Ngoc and I just got back from seeing Rent, the movie. Yes, its great. The music is still there, largely due to the fact that nearly every original broadway cast member was back for the film. But like any film adaptation, they took some creative licensing. A few songs were cut, shortened and the order was slightly re-arranged. And the transitional dialog, normally sung (think "You okay honey?" "I'm afraid so."), is spoken. They added dialog, fleshed out some transitional scenes, all to add more backing and such to the characters. Though I prefer it all to be sung, I feel that adding in dialog was a smart decision on the director's part. This film is introducing a story to "the masses" who might not otherwise have heard about it. Its a "second coming" of sorts for the show. Its now hitting a much larger audience than before, and so they went out of their way to more visually explain things that are mentioned in passing in the original stage script.
All the actors did wonderfully in their roles, including the non-originals. My favorite character, Collins, was performed very well by Jesse L. Martin. Well enough that one forgets he's a Law & Order veteran. He becomes Tom Collins in all his glory.
All in all, its not Rent the musical (and its foolish to expect a clone of the stage production), but it stands strong in its own right, and I think is an excellent rendition of the story.
If you're a Rent fan, I recommend seeing it at least once to form your opinion of whether you like it or not. And if you're not a Rent fan, see this movie; there's a good chance you'll like it. But be warned, there's no sex, guns, explosions, action heroes and evil mad dictators.
EDIT: Been thinking about this a bit, and a couple more things popped into my head. At the beginning of the movie, they did the cast standing in a line singing Season's of Love. However, after Angel's death, they didn't do the whole standing in the line singing Season's of Love with Angel's spot empty. I thought that was a very powerful scene in the stage production, and I miss it in the film. Also, Angel's death sequence was sort of over=shadowed. They had a series of scenes showing Roger & Mimi's break-up (with the drug-dealer, etc). In the stage production, after the "Contact" song, you here a series of "It's over." from different characters, and finally Collins' heart-wrenching "It's over" as he hugs Angel's lifeless body. They cut "Contact" from the film entirely, and intermixed scenes of Angel's deterioration with Roger & Mimi's break-up and Mimi's deterioration, and finally with a scene of Collins crying in the hospital hugging Angel. Then they just fade to the funeral. Collins' reprise of "I'll Cover You" is very moving though. I got teary-eyed like normal.