* * * * <i> Great Balls of Fire</i> * * * <i> Good Vibrations</i> * * <i> Maybe Baby</i> * <i> Running on Empty : </i> : Cher in the Shallows

* * 1/2 “CHER.” Cher. Geffen. Cher is a theatrical singer, given to belting out the most frail of material with lung-busting vigor. This often makes her seem shallow, particularly when she sings a song that proposes a less than earthshaking theory, (“We All Sleep Alone”) with the same level of intensity she brings to genuinely solid tunes like “I Found Someone” and “Perfection.” It’s an approach that trivializes emotion, rather than enhancing it. Cher’s dry method of overkill does give a campy, modernized jolt to an update of the 1966 Sonny & Cher hit “Bang Bang.” It’s interesting that rather than try to ignore or downplay that phase of her career, Cher confronts it with near-operatic, bang-down-the-walls results.