Like being served a disgusting burger in a three-star restaurant

Rating: 1/10 (24 January 2002)

God, how I detest this film (though in all fairness I liked the opening credits). I hate most of the songs(so I'm a devotee of the Great American Songbook - sue me), the dances (which aren't THAT great, see the DVD) are obscured by MTV-on-speed cutting, the story, though 'mythical' is so thin and predictable that I cannot understand how anyone could be moved by this (or why it took Lurmann and his co-writer so long to get the story 'right' - it's a direct steal from La Bohème/ La dame au Camélias). And though Ewan and Nicole's performances are decent, I am not a fan of either performer and really couldn't care less about them. So at the tragic finale I just laugh scornfully at the deliberate tearjerking instead of being (even slightly) moved. On top of this, the vulgarity and over-the-top camp act as total turnoffs for me. If someone wants to 'reinvent' the musical, why not DO IT LIKE THEY USED TO, going for real charm and delighting in the sensuousness of performance instead of having the director ego-trip the whole time through (why can't any director understand that in musicals THE PERFORMERS DANCE WHILE THE CAMERA STAYS STILL???!!!) Definitely one of the most irritating film experiences of the year. But what can one expect from a film which, while claiming to use the 'best ever songs of the twentieth century', opens with the abysmally wretched 'Nature Boy'??? I am so glad I only saw this on a review copy DVD - any money I had to pay for it would have been daylight robbery.