Fast Pace Loses Plot

Rating: 9/10 (29 December 2001)

The best comparison to make between this and another movie is
Shakespeare in Love. Like the deserving Academy Award winner,
Moulin Rouge features a play within a play where the writter falls in
love with someone out of his reach. The problem is that this
movie doesn't have the proper pacing. Partly because of it's
setting in the Paris Bohemian underworld, it is a constant rush of
images through much of it that is just painful to watch and
overworks the senses to the point the brain isn't prepared to take
in the finer points. Watching through the first hour I was so
tempted to just turn the film off as it hadn't pulled me in, something
a good movie should accomplish in much less time. It seems
this film has had as much a split review from the critics as any and
it seems so for good reason. As much promise that might be
there convincing some to like it, there are problems that convince
others not to.