McGregor saves the day!

Rating: 5/10 (22 April 2002)

Prior to watching Moulin Rouge! , I only heard amazing things about this movie. However I was warned that it IS a musical, and I was not sure how well this movie was really made since I am not a fan of musicals. As the movie begins Ewan McGregor's narration lays an impression on the viewer. The opening scene is serious and sad when McGregor is explaining what has happened. His narration continues the movie changes rapidly into a ridiculous comedy that does not seem appealing at all. It continues for another hour to have this great touch of a ridiculous comedy which is not funny I might add. The first hour of the movie was completely boring and seemed very weak, however in certain scenes McGregor proved his acting ability very well and showed the audience how well he is capable to act. The story does not pick up until half way through the movie. That is when the climax begins and the story begins to take a serious shape compared to the first half. The second hour of the movie has many twists and turns in the sense of the complications between the two main characters. They are caught between their love and their duties and seem to forget how badly they are tangled up in this obstacle. Again the story changes rapidly from a ridiculous comedy into a serious romantic drama. It continues with its more serious side until it hits the end. The ending was not unexpected but without a doubt it can be said that it was a better ending than most recent movies that have been released. For a regular movie person the ending would be predictable, but the overall performance near the end raises and became much better than it was at the beginning of the movie. One has to sit through the movie in order to completely understand what is going on and in order to determine what kind of movie this is. To come to a conclusion and give this movie a definite genre, Moulin Rouge! is a musical love story beyond any doubts, it is preformed in a comedic style as the movie opens, however it changes into a dramatic love story as it proceeds. As a personal note I might add that this movie was no Oscar material accept Ewan McGregor's performance. I believe that with this movie or even his prior movies he has proven that he is a great actor with great abilities. Him being in the cast was probably the only reason that I did watch this movie. As another private note I wish to add that for the 2001 Oscar nominations if there was anyone worthy of winning the `Beat Actor of the Year' award it would have been McGregor rather than Denzel Washington for `Training Day'. This once again proves that the Oscars are not concerned with ART in movies but rather larger box office digits. One last statement that I want to close this off with; this movie is not for everyone, you have to sit through a lot of senseless material in order to get through this and it will not be easy (I warn you now!). As I mentioned it before, if this movie has one strong element to it then it was Ewan McGregor, In other words, McGregor saves this movie from being `very bad' to `okay'.