Its's a movie than starts fresh but just ends in a recycled mess.

Rating: 7/10 (17 June 2003)

When one first starts watching Moulin Rouge it is easy like the characters of the movie to get swept away in its eye popping visual flair. The Costume, and Art department get a big 2 thumbs up for the work they did on this piece. And the some of the musical sequences were phenominal (i.e. Loved the Can-Can; and both versions of "Diamonds are a Girls best friend", as well as "Roxanne" looked amazing). But other than that i feel that Moulin Rouge had nothing else to offer but a very bad, way over-dramatic storyline. Its a Movie that starts Fresh but just ends in a recycled mess and for the most part everything just came off very cheesy. I think what i really didn't like about it is that it seems like an original piece of work but its not. I hated how most of the songs weren't original but remakes or re-vamped versions of pop hits. Throwing a whole bunch of songs together to make one love song just seemed cheesy to me and silly. In fact thats another good adjective for this movie silly, and too erratic. It kinda felt i was on drugs for most of the film; some wild stimulant for the first 30 minutes and then on some depressants for the second half. Though i couldn't feel anything for any of the characters. I really didn't care if the lovers ended up together at the end, because they had to force this love story down your throat till there was no room for air much less anything else. By the end I was just exhausted of hearing everyone moan and cry. Performances over-all were good but I think Ewan Mcgregor shines brighter than Nicole Kidman does. His wide-eyed enthusiam for art and love was addicting at times, but Nicole seemed to jump from stale to over the top too many times (her performances in The Others and The Hours are better examples of her acting abilitites). Everyone else just seemed (again) silly. Moulin Rouge is not a terrible movie. Its almost worth it to own a copy just to look at the dazzling decor of the film. But having to hear 200 songs about love isn't worth it to me.