Nice Visuals, Terrible & Insulting Script

Rating: 4/10 (1 November 2006)

Being a fan of the 1952 film, I was pumped to see this, especially after reading a few reviews which raved about it. Wow, what a letdown.
Yes, part of the reason I was so disappointed with this was that it bore little resemblance to biography of artist Toulouse-Lautrec which was the centerpiece of the classic film.
Later, when I was informed that this movie was not intended to be a re-make but a totally new movie with its own story, I felt a little better and watched the movie again. Sorry, but it still sucked!
Oh, the visuals were great, especially in the beginning of the movie. I loved all the color and wild visuals in that first 20 minutes, but that was it. After that, it settled into a frustrating love story and the bogged down drastically the rest of the way.
As for the music, there are too many slow numbers sung by mediocre singers like Nicole Kidman and Ethan Hawke, the two romantic interests in the film. They weren't bad singers, but so-so wasn't good enough for a major motion picture production like this.
And, being a big fan of Toulouse-Lautrec's artwork and fascinating history, I didn't appreciate him being shown as a clownish transvestite-type character. That was disgusting, and really tells you about this film.
As they say, "too bad; this could have been so much better." All they needed was an entirely new script.