Overdone Mess

Rating: 5/10 (5 February 2009)

If the songs in this movie were to be more rhythmic, you would have read tons of comments along the lines of 'MTV style editing' - I don't have a problem with fast editing, but in this one there are sequences composed of countless shots under a second in length, and they are long enough to make me dizzy.
Senses are purposely overloaded and silly plot devices are layered one above the other to form giant heaps which should be conveying a feeling of joyful mindlessness, yet if you take a step back and look at the big picture the plot has a nice symmetry intertwined all throughout.
The cast as a whole works, but Kidman came through as totally unbearable, she was like so totally over the top that if I was to compare her to a food, I'd say the cook has totally ruined the raw material by mistakenly pouring a ton of salt and spices. The underlying flavor of the character is totally blown away by the excesses of her interpretation (and FWIW the mindbending squealing) Despite involvement of famed producers like Craig Armstrong and Marius DeVries some songs are totally unlistenable (it doesn't help that the choice of Broadbent apparently couldn't sing even if it was a matter of life or death). I'm thinking of Show must go on, though on average the music wasn't so bad (the medley are a bit forced IMO), and couldn't avoid smiling when I recognized Gorecki.
All in all there are good things in this movie but its flaws completely overshadow anything else.