a great and unique artistic vision, but they completely blew the execution

Rating: 6/10 (30 March 2008)

moulin rouge! seems to be universally beloved, so i saw it with high expectations, but also with an open mind. i really wanted to like this movie. however, i was rather disappointed.
i think i can see what they are trying to do here: the cinematic equivalent of a great pop song. simple in its content, glamorous in its presentation and honest in its emotion. its a great and daring artistic vision and certainly unlike anything I've seen so far. so it really pains me that they completely blew the execution.
the biggest (but far from only) mistake is casting Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor as the leads. neither of them can sing, which is fatal in a love story in which the lovers express their feelings by bursting into song. furthermore, they lack chemistry and utterly fail to convince in their roles. Kidman spends the first half of the movie squeaking hysterically and the second half being the passive observer of her own fate; McGregor is styled as if he was a member of the Backstreet Boys.
but there are so many other things that bothered me. the comedy parts are so over the top that they are more annoying than funny. the voice-over narration is just lazy. and i know in a movie like this the story is not really important, but still, it wouldn't have hurt to have a slightly less idiotic plot.
the selection of songs is a mixed bag: Patti Labelles "lady marmalade" and the polices "Roxanne" are a given, and there are flashes of brilliance (eg. Nirvanas "smells like teen spirit", Madonnas "material girl"). but "the sound of music" and "rhythm of the night"? "up where we belong"? really? and for a film that relies so heavily on its production design, Moulin Rouge! is remarkably tasteless, even for a film that embraces kitsch. (check out Sofia Coppolas "Marie Antoinette", FranÃ§ois Ozons "8 Femmes" or Todd Haynes' "velvet goldmine" to see how these things should be done.)
if seen with lesser expectations, Moulin Rouge! is still an enjoyable rush with an admirable artistic vision buried somewhere underneath its many flaws. its certainly courageous and unique, and it will probably be even more hilarious to see it in ten or twenty years. but really, i don't understand why it was so successful.