Rocky Horror Show at Studio 54

Rating: 1/10 (3 June 2001)

Having loved Strictly Ballroom, I was looking forward to seeing this film. I could see what the director was trying to do: The Rocky Horror Show at Studio 54 as performed by Monty Python's Flying Circus, with scenes from "Oh What a Lovely War" and "Peter Pan" thrown in for good measure, but I found it a bit too much. The colors were too vivid, the editing nauseatingly fast, the sound system seemed to have blown a fuse, and the pathetic mewing of the two leads made me nostalgic for the great days of Howard Keel and Katherine Grayson. What ever happened to singing lessons or dubbing? The singing was too week and the songs too brief for me to recognize any of the songs. I kept wondering who had given Baz Luhrman all that money to make this film.
I like both Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, but I did get tired of seeing close ups of ghostly pale Nicole's smudged scarlet lipstick, and listening to her flat Australian twang. OK, I'm picky picky, but with the money she earns she could afford to take elocution and singing lessons.

The file had one truly superb scene for me: the violent Tango/Apache Dance which no low dive in Paris was ever without. It is many years since I saw one and this was excellent. The other dance scenes of the Can Can were far too brief but what little glimpse we had showed it as it likely was rather than the dressed up "tourist version". The choreography, costumes and set design were all that made this movie bearable for me.