Run for your soul! Glitz and MTV flash triumphs over story and substance in this frenetic mess of a music video movie!

Rating: 2/10 (7 June 2001)

How can I describe the movie Moulin Rouge? Glittery multi colored cotton candy? a huge flashy cubic zirconia diamond? hallucinations of a drunken drag queen who has taken too many bad drugs? Yes, all those! The movie was one long series of glitzy shouting melodramatic climaxes interspersed now and then with some soap opera dialogue. Acting??? No room for it. Plot???? trashy remake of La Boheme (speaking of La Boheme, if you want to see a tragic love story set to music, see the opera La Boheme.avoid Moulin Rouge). In short Moulin Rouge is a triumph of glitzy style over substance. Special effects, fancy camera work, and choppy editing run amuck! On top of that the singers whisper their lyrics then shout them, one gets frazzled by all the razzle-dazzle. When the cliché climax finally came, I was so benumbed by all the frenetic scenes that instead of shouting: More! More! (for a good movie), I beseeched Hollywood: Less! Less!!!!.
Moulin Rouge reflects our pop culture, where special effects and over the top screaming singing has replaced substance and intelligence and genuine emotions. It says, it you scream loud enough and make it flashy enough, they will come, and buy. All in all a total disasterso much talent, clever sets, numbers, camera work, editing, good actors,and all the director could come up with is a 110 minute MTV music video, and a bad one at that. If you like music videos, then you may like this movie. you will be safe, there is no substance to it. Just eat that glistening spun sugar and go for the ride!