Nothing in cinema comes across quite as canned and stilted as a filmed musical, and nothing is worse than one which is insists on remaining entirely faithful to the original production, as “The Producers” is. Several key members of the first run cast are present, including stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, and the film is helmed by their Broadway director, Susan Stroman. Why we need a filmed version of the musical, which itself was based on Mel Brooks’ 1968 film starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, is a question that seems churlish in the face of such wonderful, joyful stage talents as Lane and Broderick. But the novelty of a Mel Brooks film uplifted by the dignity of a massive Broadway show—oh, the overblown tastelessness of it all!—is completely lost in its reverse-translation into celluloid. The preservation of one of the great successes in recent Broadway history is rendered moot because the filmmakers, surprisingly, did not respect the magic of the medium in which they were working.