Highly overrated, but still good.

Rating: 6/10 (24 October 2001)

After such supermovies this year, like 'Shrek' and 'le fabuleux destin d'AmÃ©lie Poulain' (Amelie from Montmatre), claiming that this nice but decent movie is the years best one sounds simply absurd in my ears. I have to admit that this movie not even succeeded to be my favorite of the week !
No question, the singing is okay, dialogue is good, and there are quite some nice jokes in it. But the movie does basically nothing but bathing the watcher in cliche, telling him or her such well hidden secrets such as 'there is nothing more important than love'. I really often felt quite bored by that.
And the environment embarrassed me. The Moulin Rouge is actually nothing but a brothel in Paris ! A place where rich old men buy poor young girls. A prison. A shame for mankind. Whatever. But in the movie, it is treated with a glory as if it would be a kings palace !
Too, many story parts couldn't raise my interest at all. The whole part with the jealously could, if at all, make me laugh. Whats the point there ? The man should have known that he is fallen into a whore ! What did he expect ? That she immediately transforms into an angel now ?
In the end, 'Moulin Rouge' is nothing but a female counterpart to 'Fast and Furious'. Instead of action you get song and dance, and instead of coolness and freedom you get romance. But I liked the far more realistic characters from 'Fast and Furious' more than these boring stereotypes from 'Moulin Rouge'.