Tease is the word

To answer your first question: He looks like Barney. A huge, flesh-colored Barney. Or maybe like Barbra Streisand after a Botox overdose. Actually, there are times in "Hairspray " when John Travolta seems on the verge of being eaten by his fat suit, so swaddled is the actor in padding, hair, make up, and structural engineering. I haven't even mentioned the exceedingly strange accent in which he delivers his lines: Carol Channing by way of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel .

And yet -- Edna Turnblad lives. The dumpy shut-in, laundress, and mother to irrepressible teen dynamo Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky ) becomes as much a full-figured character as a full-figured gal in this supremely energetic Broadway transplant. Against all expectations, "Hairspray" turns out to be an explosion of industrial-strength good cheer, delivered by very smart show-biz pros with wit, passion, and a soupçon of dementia. Resistance is futile.

Let's backtrack. In 1988, cult-movie director John Waters directed the original "Hairspray," a sneakily subversive blast of early- ' 60 s nostalgia about TV dance shows and rock 'n' roll integration. It starred the filmmaker's 300 -pound drag muse Divine as Edna, a newcomer named Ricki Lake as Tracy, and if you've never seen it, get it on your Netflix queue immediately. The "Madison Time " scene alone can change your life.

In 2002, "Hairspray" landed on Broadway, transformed into a big but still reasonably perverse musical. It won eight Tonys , assuring a trip back to celluloid. Correct me if I'm wrong, but only "The Producers " has followed the same movie-to-musical-to-movie path, and that one was a high-spirited embalming.

Not this time. From the very first number, in which Blonsky belts out "Good Morning Baltimore " over the sleazy sights, sounds, and smells of her city, the film clears the launch pad and soars into orbit. Adapted by the reliable screenwriter Leslie Dixon and directed by former choreographer Adam Shankman (he made alleged comedies like "The Pacifier " and "Bringing Down the House, " but we'll overlook that for now), "Hairspray" is once again a movie.

If you look fast, you'll see Waters himself in a cameo (as a flasher; what else?), proof the new film is in touch with its dyed roots. Further evidence is in the casting, which includes Christopher Walken as father Wilbur Turnblad , proprietor of the Hardy-Har Hut joke shop above which his family lives; Michelle Pfeiffer as Velma Von Tussle , evil TV station manager and mother of Tracy's teen rival, Amber (Brittany Snow ); Queen Latifah as record-store owner Motormouth Maybelle , almost emerging from the shadow of the late Ruth Brown in the original film.

Even the younger roles have been cast with an acerbic grin, from Amanda Bynes as Tracy's BFF, Penny Pingleton (what she does to a lollipop could violate the Mann Act ), to "High School Musical " dreamboat Zac Efron as Link Larkin , teen idol of "The Corny Collins Show ." Whether he's acting or not, Efron's as adorably dull as Michael St. Gerard was in 1988. They're both baby Elvii and the hottest things in 1962 Baltimore.

"Hairspray" remains a story of social outsiders cheerfully bashing their way into the spotlight. If Blonsky's Tracy demands to know why a "pleasingly plump" teenage girl with ultra-high hair can't do the Monkey on local afternoon TV -- and get the guy in the bargain -- her war is waged with swing and a smile. (Until that unfortunate assault charge, at least.)

Singing "Mama, I'm a Big Girl Now, " Tracy scales the battlements of uptight Baltimore and drags black kids like Seaweed Stubbs (a terrifically limber and engaging Elijah Kelley ) and his sister Little Inez (Taylor Parks ) in her wake, trying to finish what Elvis started by getting them on TV to dance to their own music. Unlike the Waters movie, she steps aside at a crucial point and lets them lead the charge on their own. In general, this "Hairspray" has a winking awareness of the way the white mainstream strip-mines African-American culture that just barely saves the movie from smugness. (Or as Tracy says, "Being invited places by black people -- it's so hip!" )

I do miss the R&B chestnuts of the first "Hairspray," but the Broadway songs are tremendous, cross-pollinating doo-wop, soul music, and Lesley Gore with arch comic irony. When Corny Collins (James Marsden of the "X-Men " movies, all Brylcreem and teeth) introduces his show with the energetic dance number "The Nicest Kids in Town ," the compliment carries a social and racial sting. But it's got a good beat and you can dance to it.

The real secret weapon here may be composer Marc Shaiman , who wrote the tunes and, with Scott Wittman , the lyrics for the Broadway show. Shaiman's the mad doctor who gave us the musical numbers in "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut " and he's a master of slick, propulsively funny pastiche.

Still, Broadway addicts will mourn the disappearance of a handful of songs as "Hairspray" expands to fill the dimensions of a movie screen. The energy comes more from the performances and score than the filmmaking, but Shankman directs ably, and he even pulls the camera back to take in large-scale dance numbers instead of cutting feverishly among the body parts as "Chicago " and other modern screen musicals do. Of the new breed of Tony-winning transfers, "Hairspray" makes the leap most confidently. (But what's the competition? "Rent "? "Phantom "??)

Blonsky even outshines Lake (who turns up here in a cameo), partially because Tracy's confidence can now take flight in song as well as dance. Pfeiffer restarts her career with a bang after five years offscreen, turning Velma into a tight-lipped vamp quivering with racist politesse. That said, the scene I'll pack away in my movie-memento scrapbook doesn't involve either actress. It's the backyard " (You're) Timeless to Me " number, in which Travolta's Edna, as balletic as the hippo in "Fantasia ," trips the light fantastic with her husband.

If you haven't seen 1981's "Pennies From Heaven " lately, maybe you've forgotten that Walken's a song-and-dance man. Here he and his cross-dressing co-star pirouette up and down the fire escape and around the clothesline, segueing into a Latin dance number that briefly raises the specter of "Saturday Night Fever ." It's a lovely scene, suffused with a grace that comes from our longstanding affection for both actors. It also marks the line where "Hairspray" stops short, because the sequence builds to a kiss that just isn't allowed to happen.

A minor hiccup, maybe, but it makes you realize how much transgressiveness has been purged from this project. Divine was patently a gay man in a cheap housedress (so was Harvey Fierstein onstage); by contrast, Travolta plays Edna blissfully straight. A kiss would break that illusion and take the character out of the closet, and this movie's not going to risk that.

Seaweed and Penny Pingleton do share a juicy interracial smooch -- hot enough to discomfit all the right people -- but "Hairspray" is still overly nervous about the love between a man and his wife who's actually another man in 75 pounds of foam and enough foundation to spackle the USS Constitution . Maybe I'm carping: The movie's tremendous fun. And maybe we're not as far from 1962 as we think.

Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com. For more on movies, go to boston.com/ae/ movies/blog