Rush out and see it while it's still on the big screen

Rating: 10/10 (5 September 2001)

I went into this movie with no more than the barest notions of who the two lead characters were, and the knowledge that this was a musical (or, more accurately, a re-working of the standard movie musical). Since I was afterwards grateful I'd seen it with no pre-conceived ideas, I won't go into detail, except to say that if you haven't viewed it yet, you ought to run out and catch it while it's still playing the big screens.
This is a film to be experienced big. With its gorgeously-detailed sets, swooping cameras, wild colors, and soaring music, MR needs to be seen on the same scale that it's presented. Suspend your disbelief when you walk in the theater door, sit back, and take it in. You're stepping into a different world.
But not so different that it keeps the heart of the film from ringing true. Kidman and McGregor are are both breathtaking, and they sold me on their characters...and, most important, on each other's characters.
And bonus--in this day and age, a film set in a hedonistic nightclub with no gratuitous sex and no gratuitous violence? It's shocking. Absolutely shocking.