Horrible yet Visually Wonderful

Rating: Null/10 (9 June 2001)

The good parts: fantastic visual creativity, Baz Luhrman and his wife (the production designer) went all out to create a no holds barred visual experience, very creative, no expense spared. Its clever that the main characters all have red hair (Nicole Kidman, Jim Broadbent and the Duke) and the "Redness" of the entire production is weird and wonderful. The red blood coughed up by the dying actress (But the dark complexioned writer, Ewan McGregor, stays in the "White Hotel". The weird use of lyrics from old Elton John songs, and other 70's and 80's hits, redone as operatic spectaculars, is creative, but very strained after 5 minutes. Then there is the Australian connection, it was filmed in Australia, Nicole is Australian, it was made by Fox, owned by Australian Rupert Murdoch, and something tells me Baz Lurhman must be an Aussie.
The bad parts: cynical use of the same plot from Romeo and Juliet (already done by Baz) and "Titanic", you know beautiful young lovers, evil capitalist with gun-toting henchman ready to "whack" the beautiful boy. How about the "American Beauty" shot of the dying actress in the rose petals? The music is lip-synched, badly. The principals don't even appear to be trying to look like they are singing in some numbers, the actors and the songs are poorly synchronized, they just ran out of time and money evidently.
This is a train wreck of a movie, but fascinating in the way that train wrecks are fascinating. It has some sort of family connection to Baron Munchausen and Topsy Turvy. Its hard for me to understand that Baz didn't somehow have something to do with those movies, since the look is so similar. This director is probably very good at making 2 minute music videos, visually arresting, with lip synched lyrics, but will the public accept MTV-the two hour movie? Time will tell.