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MOVIE: A Star is Born STARRING: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Dave Chappelle, Anthony Ramos, Sam Elliott. RATING: M REVIEWER: Wenlei Ma

THE third remake of a classic Hollywood flick, the Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga film is an impressive spectacle that hits most of the emotional highs and lows audiences want from a movie that promises to take you on a melodramatic journey.

Not melodramatic in a bad way, melodramatic in that everything is heightened – the triumphs are soaring, the tragedies are crushing. Musicals are not subtle beasts.

Is it perfect, the most amazing movie you’ll see this year? No, but it is pretty great.

Bradley Cooper plays Jackson Maine, a country-rock star who still commands adulation but whose star is on the wane after years of battling drug and alcohol addiction, as well as the hearing condition tinnitus.

Coming off a roaring gig, he goes to a bar where he sees Ally (Lady Gaga) performing a soulful rendition of Edith Piaf’s La Vie En Rose. Ally is an aspiring singer who, despite her obvious talent, has been rejected by countless labels because she doesn’t have the right “look”, especially her nose, apparently.

Jack is immediately enchanted and while she’s initially hesitant, they bond over an evening – she singing her songs for him in a supermarket carpark, him magnetised by her presence. By the next night, she’s on stage at his next concert, belting out the song she sang for him in the carpark, now fully arranged.

It’s A Star Is Born’s most exultant moment.

While imperfect, A Star Is Born is a satisfying and emotionally evocative epic. If only it had managed to maintain the intoxicating allure of its first hour.