Delightful musical storytelling strung together by theatrical silliness

Rating: 8/10 (15 January 2002)

While amazing by stage standards I had mixed feelings at the onset of this rendition. Though starting with a clever opening this film quickly finds itself mired in silliness and visual cacophony. What has been repeatedly described as production brilliance seemed at first a garish mess of opulent design and flashy costume only suited for a vaudeville production. However, the opening sequences do serve to set the stage, as it were, for the rest of the film. The music is where the real magic begins. At the onset of the first duet with Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman I was hooked for the duration. The music of this piece is clever and inventive while being almost wholly unoriginal at the same time. The songwriters have tapped into some 50 years of pop songs about `Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and above all, Love' and woven them together in powerful, evocative fashion in many cases transcending the original versions. In similar fashion to Dancer in the Dark (though no further comparison applies), the film is at its most pleasurable peak during the musical numbers.