Gorgeous, colorful, stylish,...BRAINLESS!

Rating: Null/10 (19 June 2002)

Let's face it, a huge chunk of money was sunk into MOULIN ROUGE! and when you're working with a big budget you can make visual miracles a reality. It's the same thing Lucas did with STAR WARS, EPISODE 1, another dazzling display of visual technique. That said, this film, like EPISODE 1, is completely empty and worthless beyond the asthetics, and it's bludgened to death by overlength and cornball dramatics. I just don't get the appeal of these things. I'd also like to note that escapist cinema is a good thing, but it does NOT have to insult our intelligence. I think I had a difficult time swallowing this because of the ineffectual, cliche-ridden and cheesy dialogue & plot developments, but apparently that didn't matter to many people since this landed smack in the middle of the Top 250 list and got nominated for so many awards.
Ewan McGregor is becoming a sell-out (just look what big bucks did to once-good actors Jeff Goldblum and Nicolas Cage) and Nicole Kidman is asked to do very little than stand around a look ravishing (she's very good at that, but why couldn't Madonna have played this role?). Baz Luhrmann's intentions here are to get across that (I'm quoting him from the 2002 Oscar telecast) "Love is the big picture!" I respond with a big fat "No sh*t there, Baz!" OK, so the execution of the worn out plot is different, but if hyperkinetic camerawork, spastic characters bouncing off the walls and overkill special FX is the price I have to pay for originality, then I'll pass.
Little rings true in this film. The emotions are forced and fake. The reinterpretations of classic songs are terrible, the singing voices are pretty mediocre...Catherine Martin and others did brilliant work with the art direction and costumes and she was rightfully applauded, so I will give the film that much. A far as this new age of musicals, Lars von Trier's DANCER IN THE DARK is leagues better than this attention-hogging "musical for a new millenium." Bjork delivered a haunting performance in DANCER that easily eclipses Kidman's work here (and I don't mean to state the obvious by adding she's a much better singer). Unfortunately for the Icelandic elfen princess, she's not as easy on the eyes as Kidman...and that seems to be what's most important to movie-goers and critics.
I recommend DANCER over this any day, but I always applaud originality, even when it doesn't actually work as is the case with MOULIN ROUGE!, so...
Score: 4 out of 10.