A dull musical with some truly bad music.

Rating: Null/10 (4 January 2007)

Visually impressive - though unfortunately over reliant on red - musical that seems to drift in a Netherworld between very broad comedy and romantic drama. Too long, and quite full of dull dialogues with most supporting characters overacting their asses off. The musical numbers are mostly forgettable, occasionally even awful - like the rape of "Roxanne", the idiotic version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit", the dried up and never-has-been-good, tedious "Madame Chocolat" (or whatever the hell it's called), and the utterly hopeless choice of one or two Madonna(!) songs. Talk about bad taste. Another musical problem is Nicole Kidman's voice, which is clearly quite inferior to McGregor's surprisingly solid voice; she doesn't so much sing as she whispers - a true mark of someone with a weak voice. The "whisper cop-out" is often used by women who try to disguise the fact that their voice doesn't measure up. This never becomes more obvious than when the two leads sing together; she simply pales by comparison. Also, the two have been mismatched: 1) she is older than him, 2) he is charismatic, she isn't, and 3) most importantly, she is a head taller. McGregor is charismatic, but he can't help this movie much. And how's that last "message" we get at the very end of the end-credits: "truth", "beauty", and "above all... love". How profound and how friggin' touching'. Come on everybody, let's all sing bad 80s/90s hits (or 80s/90s hits covered badly) and pull out our handkerchiefs and whimper a lot. Still, it could be worse: it could be "Chicago".