The film equivalent to Pop Rocks.

Rating: Null/10 (6 June 2001)

The first half of Moulin Rouge is pure genius. I've heard several reviews that say the exact opposite, but I have to humbly disagree. The movie starts out as a dizzying, energetic trip of a movie that somehow manages to be both a parody of musicals and a tribute to them. I have never in my life seen a group of people have more fun on screen than the cast does here. And the music is simply brilliant. It's a celebration of the pop music of the past couple decades. It's an ode to how cheesy it really all is but how much it moves us anyway. `Elephant Love Medley' had my friend and I doubling over in fits of delighted giggling as we recognized each song as it burst onto the scene. `Like a Virgin' rivaled the best of Monty Python's musical numbers and `Roxanne' manages to be funny, sexy and tragic all at the same time. The club itself plays like a megamix of the past century; seamlessly blending disco with Nirvana, Marilyn with Madonna and kitschy 70's rock with Nat King Cole. And then we get to the second half. The songs become less frequent and the obligatory tragic ending begins its downward spiral. The life just gets sucked right out of the film. It suddenly feels unfocused, but not in the frenetic, hyper, joyous way of the first half, but more in the `we have to cram three hour of plot into one hour of movie' way. This is a movie that should have the audience dancing out of the theatre, but instead it's ridiculously down ending had them staring blankly at the screen. Even the most tragic of stage productions has a curtain call. One last blast of music that gets the audience back into the giddy artifice of the Broadway Musical, one last audio rush that inspires the masses to give standing ovations to pieces that may not even really deserve it. This is sorely lacking from Moulin Rouge. The movie is the film equivalent to Pop Rocks. It's a party in your mouth for the first couple seconds, and then your tongue gets all scratchy and you suddenly want a drink of water. In spite of this, I highly recommend this movie. I think pretty much everyone will enjoy at least one half of it, depending on your tastes, but the whole still must be seen to be believed.